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note: 

A negro Oy 



THE NEGROES OF COLUMBIA 

MISSOURI .Ai 



A CONCRETE STUDY OF THE RACE 
PROBLEM 



A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE DEPART- 
MENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI, IN PARTIAL FULFILL- 
MENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE 
OF MASTER OF ARTS 

(DEPARTMENT OF SOCICIiOsaT) 

By • 

WILLIAM WILSON ELWANG, M. A. 

WITH A PREFACE 
BY 

CHARLES A. ELLWOOD, Ph. D. 

PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY. 



i 

Published by Department or Sociology i 

University of Missouri 
1904 

PRICE 50 CENTS 




note:- 

A rta^ro 0«Mr, f^antad o^ Haqro. 

• ■■ * . Occwpiad b^i Sam* 

• Vvhi^e OniKr, R<n1*Ct to Uaqro 
■ fAo^ro Church 

• O-cd Douq\a> School Inaarol, 



■CuEs 



LICRAKY of CONGRESS 
Two Cepies Received 

APR 18 1904 

Copyrisht Entry 

CLASS a. XXo. No. 

5" 4- O S. t» 
COPY B 



.bffpyi'ightad, 1904 by the 
UNIVEkSITY OF MISSOURI 



COLUMBIA, MO.: 

Press of E. W. Stephens 

1904 



PREFACE 



The following monograph on the condition of the 
negroes of Columbia, Missouri, does not profess to be 
based upon complete statistical data. As these were 
impossible to obtain, it is rather a collection of impres- 
sions received from personal observations, which while 
falling short of scientific accuracy, may nevertheless be 
considered trustworthy. Indeed, the general trust- 
worthiness of the picture presented by the monograph 
would not be questioned by any intelligent resident of 
the community in which the study was made. The few 
statistics which have been obtained from official sources 
and through personal investigation confirm the impres- 
sions received from general observation. 

The problem discussed is of such importance that 
even the results of a limited study of the condition of 
the negro population in a given locality are, I am sure, 
worthy of publication. The conditions which prevail 
in Columbia, moreover, although a community in a bor- 
der State, are typical in many respects of the conditions 
which obtain among the negroes in Southern towns gen- 
erally. The University undertakes the publication of 
this Master's dissertation, then, in the belief that it may 
be of some possible value to students of the race prob- 
lem. It is published also for the sake of illustrating 
the work of the Department of Sociology in the Univer- 
sity's exhibit in connection with the Louisiana Purchase 
Exposition. 

The author of the monograph is a gentleman of 
Southern antecedents and education; but the opinions 
expressed on various points seem to me remarkably free 
from personal or sectional bias. Particularly do I find 

ni 



IV The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

myself in hearty accord with the main conclusions 
reached in the final chapter. 

I must confess that, after three years residence in a 
community where thirty per cent of the population are 
negroes, I have been compelled to revise to some extent 
my opinions upon the race question. How totally out of 
adjustment the average negro is to the society in which 
he lives, has been impressed upon me as never before. 
No Northern person can fully comprehend this without 
having experienced the fact. Yet it should be fully re- 
alized by all who are concerned either with the discus- 
sion of the problem or with the practical work of uplift- 
ing the race. 

Primarily this lack of adjustment is on th« econo- 
mic side. The average negro as a wage-worker secures 
neither the respect of his employer nor a competence 
for himself. He is not adapted to the free wage system. 
Herein lies the crux of the difficulty. As a consequence, 
those relations of mutual respect and affection which so 
often subsisted between the colored man and his em- 
ployer, under the regime of slavery, now scarcely exist. 
As a further consequence, the relations between the 
races, in almost every community in the South, are 
strained to the point of disruption. This is as true of 
the relations between the better classes of whites and 
the negroes as it is of the relations between the negroes 
and those whites who make no profession of being actu- 
ated by Christian principles in their dealings with the 
lower race. Harmonious relations between the races 
cannot exist until the negro becomes satisfactory as an 
instrument of production under a system of free con- 
tract; that is, until the negro wage-earner secures the 
respect of his white employer by his efficiency, fidelity, 
and honesty in his work. 

The negro problem is, then, primarily a problem in 
economic adjustment. If this is true, the solution of 



Preface v 

the problem— putting aside all deportation and coloniza- 
tion schemes as at once fatuous and impossible — con- 
sists first of all in giving the negro such training as will 
fit him for a place in our industrial life. This means 
industrial training in the broad sense of the phrase, for 
the masses of the colored population, such as will de- 
velop in them the character and intelligence necessary 
for efficiency in production on the one hand, and for 
citizenship, on the other. It may fairly be claimed that 
Mr. Booker Washington and others have demonstrated 
the feasibility and practicability of such industrial 
training for the negro on a large scale. But only the 
Federal Government can undertake to carry it out. The 
intervention of the Federal Grovernment is demanded, 
then, if anything effective is to be done toward the solu- 
tion of the negro problem. The negroes, like the In- 
dians, are still essentially a nature people. There is no 
reason why the Federal Government should not, at least 
during their minority, regard them, like the Indians, 
as wards of the Government, and provide for their edu- 
cation accordingly. Only it is to be hoped that the Fed- 
eral Government would not repeat with the negro the 
blunders which it has made in its attempts to educate 
and civilize the Indian. 

This, I understand, is the position of the author of 
this monograph. If its publication serves at all to dif- 
fuse this idea, I shall be glad. For the people of 
the United States can not too soon make up their 
minds that anything like an approximate solution of this 
problem calls for Federal intervention. It is surely 
time to act when one hears, as I have heard. Northern 
men of abolitionist ancestry, who have come to reside 
in the South, say in private that they think that the abo- 
lition of slavery was a mistake. 

Charles A. Ellwood. 
The University of Missouri, 
Columbia, Mo. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PAGES 

PREFACE Ill-v 

INTRODUCTORY 1-5 

CHAPTER I— Historical 7-13 

CHAPTER II— Economic Conditions ----- 14-19 

CHAPTER III— Occupations and Wages . - . - 20-28 

CHAPTER IV— Benevolent, Insurance, and Social Societies 29-32 

CHAPTER V— Religious Life 33-37 

CHAPTER VI— Education ...... 38-44 

CHAPTER VII— Health and Morals ----- 45-55 

CHAPTER VIII— Crime - 56-59 

CHAPTER IX— Politics 60-62 

CHAPTER X— The Negro's Future - - - - - 63-69 



VII 



THE NECtEOES of COLUMBIA, MISSOURI 

A Concrete Study of the Race Problem 



INTRODUCTORY 

The presence of more than 9,000,000 negroes in the 
United States, most of them massed below Mason and 
Dixon's line, has created problems economic, political 
and social of tremendous importance to the present and 
future of this nation. Opportunities for the solution of 
some of these problems have been golden, but blunders 
of would-be-reformers and political chicanery quite 
effectually demoralized both races, and the opportuni- 
ties were not improved. Happily, it is not yet too late 
to remedy the errors of the past. By the application 
of a discreet and worthy program, based upon a real 
knowledge of the real facts, and with a saner concep- 
tion of mutual duty, it is, perhaps, still possible to build 
up conditions that will enable the races reciprocally to 
discharge obligations that cannot much longer be 
ignored without the inexorable degeneration of the 
entire national social organism. The instinct of nat- 
ional self-preservation sternly demands that an honest, 
intelligent and persistent effort be made to bring the 
two seemingly antithetical peoples into helpful accord 
and sympathy, into harmonious economical and polit- 
ical, yes, even social adjustment. 

But for the achievement of this desirable end there 
must be, first, a thorough sui^'ey, and secondly, an in- 
telligent comprehension of the problem. Until quite 

(1) 



2 The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

recently trustworthy facts, beyond the superficial or 
extraordinary dealt with by the literary historian, were 
exceedingly scarce, or, to be more accurate, had not 
been systematized for the sociological student. But 
now encouraging beginnings have been made in this di- 
rection. There are at command such extensive studies 
of the problem as Prof. W. E. B. Du Bois' ''The Phila- 
delphia Negro"* a careful and thorough piece of work. 
It is no disparagement of this valuable "study" to say 
that it is more than doubtful whether the negro as he 
"lives and moves and has his being" in Philadelphia 
can safely be looked upon as typical of his Southern 
brother except in his more general race characteristics. 
Prof. Du Bois ' own figures amply demonstrate that the 
negro has never formed a very large proportion of the 
population of that city, averaging since 1790 only about 
six per cent, of the total. While the negro's position 
everywhere in this country is entirely anomalous and 
artificial, it seems to be much more so in what were the 
ante-bellum free states than in the old slave-holding 
communities. The South has been and is to-day the 
American negro 's home. The first African slaves ever 
brought to the North American continent were landed 
in the South, either in Florida or Virginia. It was in 
the South that slavery became most firmly rooted, bred 
its inevitable moral debasement of the human chattels 
themselves, and wrought its innumerable evils upon the 
ruling class. It was in the South that the vast bulk of 
the slaves were set adrift as freedmen, entirely incap- 
able of self-direction, and producing an abrupt dis- 
arrangement of all previously existing economic, polit- 
ical and social order. And it is in the South only that 
the relations of the two races have bred the problems 
that confront the nation to-day. It is in that section, 
therefore, that the negro, his character, environment 



•University of Pennsylvania Press, 1899. 



Introductory 3 

and capacity, ought to be most carefully observed if 
the key to his future is ever to be found. It was this 
conviction that prompted this study of a typical situa- 
tion. It is earnestly hoped that it may throw another 
small ray of light into a very dark problem and lead 
to wider observations and, therefore, broader gener- 
alizations by other and more competent laborers in the 
same field. 

This little brochure is, therefore, an attempt to 
study, systematically, the vital, economical, social, and 
ethical conditions of the nearly two thousand negroes 
living in the city of Columbia, Missouri, in the years 
1901 and 1902. "While some effort has been made to 
secure reliable historical data, the chief concern has 
been to ascertain actually existing conditions, on the 
theory that the value of a fact for scientific purposes 
decreases in proportion to its distance in time and space 
from the observer. 

The investigations began with a house to house 
canvass by a class of students in Sociology in the Uni- 
versity of Missouri under the direction of Dr. C. A. 
Ellwood, the head of that department. The data were 
mostly quite easily obtained, but in some important 
lines of the investigations, such as births and deaths, 
immorality and crime, it was exceedingly difficult to 
reach the needful facts. The negro, like the China- 
man in America, has both an esoteric and an exoteric 
standard of living. The conclusions so frequently 
drawn from observations of his conduct when in con- 
tact with the whites in public are altogether superficial 
and misleading. A very conscientious effort has there- 
fore been made to get somewhat beneath the outward 
and seeming, to scratch, as it were the thin veneer of 
appearances and secure for what it may be worth 
toward a solution of the problem, a true insight into 
the Columbia negro's domestic and social life, as well 



4 The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

as the economic conditions in an environment in which 
he has existed for three full generations in all the 
phases of his people's history in this country. 

The utmost care has been exercised to make the 
investigations as reliable as possible. Recourse was 
always had to the best available means of information 
and then *'to naught extenuate nor set down aught in 
malice. ' ' 
,'— But, of course, though he strive ever so earnestly to 

y^ be scientifically neutral, there is always the liability that 
the investigator will be swayed by the bias of early 
training or by convictions previously formed. The res- 
iduum of error in work like this, in which the per- 
,sonal factors of both the investigator and the investi- 
gated enter so largely, must necessarily be considerable. 
But it is confidently believed that in spite of the bias 
due to the personal equation, and the defects inherent 
in the statistical method, the results are sufficiently accu- 
rate for bases of future work in race sociology. The 
reader must remember that this is not so much an at- 
tempt to answer the race problem as an eif ort to put cer- 
tain facts into a form in which they will by and by assist 
to an answer. 

As already intimated, the peculiar value of the pres- 
ent inquiry lies in the fact that the negro problem in 
Columbia, Missouri, in nowise differs essentially from 
that problem elsewhere, in the South, or wherever ne- 
groes are found in sufficient numbers to be felt as fac- 
tors in any department of the people's activities. The 
negro has lived in Columbia for more than three gener- 
ations, first as a slave and then as a freedman, and al- 
ways in sufficiently large numbers to make plain and 
pressing the same issues which his presence raises else- 
where. In Columbia to-day (1900) there are no less 
than 1,916 persons of negro descent, living side by side 
with 3,735 persons of Caucasian extraction, closely 



Introductory 5 

dependent upon and yet more or less segregated from 
them in the life process. These nearly 2,000 negroes, 
a community within a community, present the usual 
quota of ignorance, poverty, and crime of the submerged 
classes of all communities. Politically there is here the 
same partisan affiliation as elsewhere in the South. So- 
cially there are exactly the same caste distinctions. Rac- 
ially there is the same antipathy with tolerance. It is, 
in a word, the same old and seemingly so hopelessly 
complex problem of the childish race in competition with 
the manly. Left to themselves no peoples of the black 
race have ever risen much above the primordial stage. 
None has ever created an institution or given birth to a 
social organization above the plane of barbarism. No 
division of it has ever had a written language, or devel- 
oped an architecture.* It remains to be seen whether, 
under the tuition of the masterful Caucasians, and in 
racial amalgamation with them, the hybrid descendants 
of the two will show any greater aptitude to rise to 
something permanent and worthy. 



♦See Keane's Ethnology, p. S68. 



THE NEGROES OF COLUMBIA, MISSOURI 

A Concrete Study of the Race Problem 



CHAPTER I 



HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL 



WTien that vast area known as the Louisiana Pur- 
chase was transferred to the Government of the United 
States, in 1803, the French and Spanish social institu- 
tions were left almost entirely undisturbed. Prominent 
among those institutions was slavery, which had been in- 
troduced into the territory nearly a century before the 
last change of jurisdiction. In 1719 a Sieur Renault, 
one of the directors of the famous Mississippi Company, 
in need of laborers for the mining operations in and 
about Ste. Genevieve, imported via St. Domingo, 
500 Guinea negroes,* the poorest type of full-blood 
Africans, to supply the want. In 1722, by further 
importations, the number had grown to 2,100. In 
the decade between 1750 and 1760 there were 
two slaves to every white person in the colony. 
But such was the influx of adventurers and settlers into 
the virgin region that in 1799 there was only one slave 
to every five white persons. Comparing the rates of in- 
crease of the two elements of the population of what was 
first the Territory and afterwards became the State of 
Missouri, from 1799, when a census was taken by the 
authorities, we secure, including free negroes (always 
an insignificant element in this region), the following 
figures : 



♦Switzler, Histoty of Missouri, p. 143. 

(7) 



8 



The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 



Comparative Rates of Inceease of the Races in Mis- 
souri. 



Year. 


Whites. 


Increase 
per cent. 


Negroes. 


Increase 
per cent. 


1799 


4,948 




1,080 




1810 


17,227 


248.16 


3,618 


235.00 


1820 


56,274 


226.66 


10,369 


186.06 


1830 


114,795 


103.99 


25,660 


147.47 


1840 


323,898 


182.55 


59,814 


133.10 


1850 


592,004 


82.08 


90,040 


50.53 


1860 


1,063,489 


79.47 


118,503 


31.61 


1870 


1,603,146 


50.88 


118,071 


— .36 


1880 


2,022,826 


26.18 


145,350 


23.10 


1890 


2,528,458 


24.99 


150,726 


3.69 


1900 


2,944,443 


12.51 


161,822 


7.36 



In Boone county^ of which Columbia is the county 
seat, we have, since 1830, when the county was created, 
these comparative rates of increase of the whites and 
negroes : 

Comparative Rates of Increase of the Races in Boone 

County. 



Year . 


Whites. 


Increase 
per cent. 


Negi'oes. 


Increase 
per cent. 


1830 


8,859 




1,924 




1840 


13,561 


53.07 


3,030 


57.48 


1850 


14,979 


11.19 


3,679 


21.41 


1860 


19,486 


30.09 


4,574 


24.33 


1870 


20,765 


1.43 


4,038 


-11.07 


1880 


25,422 


22.42 


5,082 


25.85 


1890 


26,043 


2.44 


4,677 


-7.97 


1900 


28,642 


9.98 


4,564 


-2.41 



Historical and Statistical 9 

For the town of Columbia itself the figures, since 
1860, are as follows: 

Comparative Rates of Inceease of the Races in Co- 
lumbia, AND Percentage of Negroes 
TO Total Population. 



Year. 


Whites. 


Increase 
per cent. 


Negroes. 


Increase 
per cent. 


Per cent 
total pop 


1860 


873 




541 




38.26 


1870 


1,438 


64.69 


798 


47.50 


35.68 


1880 


2,031 


40.54 


1,295 


62.28 


38.93 


1890 


2,406 


19.05 


1,593 


23.01 


39.83 


1900 


3,735 


55.23 


1,916 


23.10 


33.90 



Comparing the percentages of increase in the 
county with those in Columbia, we obtain this exhibit: 

Comparison of the Rates of Increase of the Races in 
Boone County and Columbia. 



Year. 


Whites. 


Negroes. 


County. 


Increase 
per cent. 


Town. 


Increase 
per cent. 


County. 


Increase 
per cent. 


Town. 


Inc 
per ct. 


1860 
1870 
1880 
1890 
1900 


19,486 
20,765 
25,422 
26,043 
28,642 


1.43 
22.42 

2.44 
9.98 


843 
1,438 
2,031 
2,406 
3,735 


64.69 
40.54 
19.85 
55.23 


4,574 
4,038 
5,082 
4,677 
4,564 


-11.07 
25.85 
-7.97 
-2.41 


541 

798 

1,295 

1,593 

1,961 


47.50 
62.28 
23.01 
23.10 



After making due allowance for the atrociously de- 
fective census of 1870, an inspection of these tables re- 
veals several interesting things: (1) That from their 
earliest importation to Missouri soil the negroes have 
steadily increased in numbers, clearly demonstrating 
that they are as much at home here, climatically and 
economically, as in more Southern latitudes; (2) That 
the percentages of increase of whites and negroes have 



10 



The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 



been quite uniformly maintained in the State, in Boone 
county, and in Columbia, from the earliest census period 
until 1890, in which year a decided decrease of the per- 
centage of increase shows itself among the negroes of 
the State, with only a slight recovery in 1900, while in 
Boone county there is a positive decrease; (3) That 
here, as elsewhere, the negroes show a strong and de- 
plorable tendency to congest at the centers of population. 
A^Tiile the negro population of Boone county was actu- 
ally decreasing, from 1880 to 1900, that of Columbia 
was steadily increasing. At present the percentage of 
negroes to population in the county is only 15.93, and 
nearly one-half of them are gathered in Columbia. It 
is, of course, precisely this feature which accentuates 
the difficulties of the problem. 

The actual population of Boone county, by color 
and sex, and the contact of the races, is comprehensively 
shown in this table : 



Population of Boone County, 1900, by Color and Sex. 



Race. 


Pop. by 
Color 


Pop. by 

Sex 


Percent. 


Whites.... 
Male .... 
Female . 


24,078 


14,599 
9,479 


84.07 
60.63 
39.37 


Negroes. .. 

Male 

Female . . 


4,564 


2,253 
2,311 


15.93 
49.36 
50.63 



Historical and Statistical 11 

In Columbia the situation is as as follows: 
PopuiATiON OF Columbia, 1900, by Color and Sex. 



Race 


Pop by 
Color 


Pop by 
Sex 


Per cent 


Whites ... 
Male .... 
Female.. 


3,734 


1,803 
1,931 


66.07 
48.28 
51.71 

33.90 
44.46 
55.53 


Negroes. . . 
Male .... 
Female.. 


1,916 


852 
1,064 



The conspicuous features of the last two tables are : 
(1) The preponderating number of white males in the 
county, with, on the other hand, a preponderating num- 
ber of white females in the town; (2) The preponder- 
ating number of negro females in both town and county, 
a condition not without its influence both economically 
and morally. 

Comparing the races in Columbia by color and 
school age we obtain these results : 

The Races in Columbia, 1900, by Color and School 
Age (5-20 yrs.) 



WTiites 


Negroes 


Males . . . 
Females . . 




553 

605 


Males . . 
Females . 




...329 
386 







Some light is, perhaps, shed upon the characteristics 
of the negroes when we attempt to determine their res- 
idential stability as a portion of Columbia 's population. 
An effort was therefore made to ascertain, for heads of 
families only, how long they had lived continuously in 
the city. The results show that the 236 persons from 
whom reliable information could be had can be divided 



12 The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

into four classes : (1) Those born in Columbia before the 
war of secession and residing there ever since; (2) 
those born elsewhere, but who came to Columbia before 
the war and have lived there ever since; (3) those born 
in Columbia since the war and still living there; (4) 
those who immigrated to Columbia since the war and 
have remained there. This last class can, in turn, be 
subdivided into four classes; (a) those who have lived 
in Columbia from 35 to 20 years; (b) those who have 
lived there from 20 to 10 years; (c) those who have 
lived there from 10 years to 1 year ; (d) those who have 
lived there less than 1 year. 

Analyzing the first four main divisions we obtain 
the following: 

Thirty-three were born in Columbia before the 
Civil War and still reside there. 

Eleven were bom elsewhere but were brought to 
Columbia before the war and still live there. 

Thirty-nine were born in Columbia since the war 
and still live there. 

One hundred and fifty-three immigrated to Colum- 
bia since the war and still live there. 

Subjecting the last class to more minute analysis 
we find that : 

Fifty-eight have lived in Columbia from 20 to 35 
years, and that of this number— 

Twenty-one had a previous residence in Boone 

county. 
Twelve had a previous residence elsewhere in 

Missouri. 
Thirteen had a previous residence outside of 

the State. 
Twelve had a previous unknown residence. 
Twenty-two have lived in Columbia from 10 to 20 
years, and that of this number— 

Thirteen had a previous residence in Boone 
county. 



Historical and Statistical 13 

Six had a previous residence elsewhere in Mis- 
souri. 
One had a previous residence outside of the 

State. 
Two had a previous unknown residence. 
Sixty-two have lived in Columbia from 1 to 10 years 
and that of this number— 

Twenty-two had a previous residence in Boone 

county. 
Thirty-four had a previous residence elsewhere 

in Missouri. 
One had a previous residence outside of the 

State. 
Five had a previous unknown residence. 
Eleven have lived in Columbia one year and less, 
and that of this number— 

Four had a previous residence in Boone 

county. 
Four had a previous residence elsewhere in 

Missouri. 
Two had a previous residence outside of the 

State. 
One had a previous unknown residence. 



CHAPTER II 



ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 



Our next inquiry will be concerned with the Colum- 
bia negro as a wealth-producer and his consequent ma- 
terial progress since the Civil War. 

Before emancipation the negro free-holder of Co- 
lumbia was a safely negligible quantity in the town's 
economic situation. Only an infinitesimally small por- 
tion of the thirty or forty millions of dollars of property 
then held by freedmen in the slave states was in his 
hands. And if the usual estimate of $700,000,000 as the 
accumulations of the race in the South to-day be correct, 
then the proportion has been steadily maintained. The 
negroes of Columbia hold about one-tenthousandth part 
of the race's wealth in the South, but constitute about 
one five-thousandth of the race numerically. 

The city of Columbia does not make any race dis- 
tinctions on her tax lists. It was, therefore, somewhat 
difficult to secure the data shown below. But with the 
assistance of a gentleman who had been for a number of 
years the local tax assessor, a complete list of property 
values assessed (on about a one-third basis) against 
the negro population, was obtained. The results are in- 
teresting and instructive. They destroy the prevailing 
local impression that Columbia negroes as a class are 
unusually thrifty and property-accumulating. 

The following table gives a comprehensive view of 
the total assessed property values of Columbia for both 
races : 



(14) 



Economic Conditions 15 

Assessed Peoperty Values of Columbia, 1900. 



Kind of property. 


Wliites. 


Negroes. 


Total. 


Real 


11,164,360 
663,815 


$54,630 
33,425 


11,318,990 
687,340 


Personal — 


Total 


$1,838,175 


78,055 


11,906,330 



The entire number of persons, irrespective of color, 
paying taxes upon property both personal and real is 
1,585, or 28.05 per cent of the total population of 5,651. 
The entire number of white taxpayers upon both 
classes of property is 1,155, or 30.09 per cent of the total 
white population of 3,735. 

The entire number of negro taxpayers upon both 
classes of property is 434, or 22.05 per cent of the total 
negro population of 1,916. 

Of the 434 negro taxpayers 185 pay taxes upon 
real estate only. Of these 104 are men, 74 are women, 
and in 7 cases husband and wife are jointly assessed; 
112 pay taxes upon both real and personal property; 
242 pay taxes upon personal property only. 

The total of assessed real and personal property, 
$78,055, is distributed among the 434 holders as follows ; 

Owning between $7,500 and $5,000 1 

Owning between $3,000 and $2,000 4 

Owning between $2,000 and $1,000 3 

Owning between $1,000 and $500 23 

Owning between $500 and $100 147 

Owning between $100 and less 256 

These figures show— 

(1) That the entire negro population of Columbia 
(33.90 percent of the total) possesses only 4.09 per cent 
of the city's entire taxable property other than that in- 
vested in banking, of which no account has been taken, 
and of which they hold none whatever. 



16 The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

(2) That they hold 4.48 per cent of the real, and 
only 3.42 per cent of the personal property. 

(3) That, assuming the average negro taxpayer 
to have begun his career in 1865 without a cent, it ap- 
pears that he has managed to provide for himself since 
that time and to accumulate, in addition, property to the 
value of $181.52. Or if we average the total of $78,055 
among the whole negro population, we find that, since 
the war, they have not only managed to make a living 
but have accumulated in addition, property which, if 
equally distributed, would give them approximately 
$40.75 per capitum. 

W. H. Thomas, himself a negro, in his book on 
''The American Negro,'' places the individual average 
of accumulation throughout the South at the present 
day at $90.00 per capitum.* But this is evidently an 
estimate of the total rather than the assessed property 
valuation. The Columbia negro would, therefore, seem 
to be somewhat better off, financially, than his fellows 
elsewhere. 

(4) That nearly one-half of all the negro prop- 
erty is in the possession of 31 persons. That of this 
half, or $37,265, nearly three-fifths, or $22,315 is in the 
hands of eight persons. In other words, over one 
fourth of all the negro property of Columbia is in the 
hands of these eight persons. Still further, of this $22,- 
315 owned by 8 persons, one-third or $7,500, is owned 
by one man and $3,000 more by his wife. 

(5) That only 31 of the 434 negro taxpayers have 
showm a measurable abilitj^ not only to make, but (and 
this is of more importance) to hold on to money. Four 
hundred and three must be put down as lacking in the 
thrift that always characterizes a progressive people. 

(6) That land ownership, always a powerful fac- 
tor in the up-lift of any class or people, is still notably 



*Thomas, The American Negro, p. 76. 



Economic Conditions 



17 



lacking among Columbia negroes taken as a class. Out 
of a total of 1,176 homes in Columbia only 132 are owned 
by negroes. 

(7) That of a total tax-revenue of $18,000.00 re- 
ceived by the city only $700.00 is paid by negroes. 
Thirty-three and ninety one-hundredths per cent of the 
population pays 3.14 per cent of the taxes. 

By summing up much of the foregoing into tabu- 
lated form we get this exhibit of 



Propeety Disteibution Among Columbia Negroes. 



Average for each tax-payer 

Averag-e for each individual 

Held by thirty-one individuals... 


$181.52 

40.75 












$37,265 
22,315 


47.75* 
28.06* 






Total holding's 








$78,055 











♦Per cent of total holdings. 

It has not been found possible to take account in 
these returns of the mortgage and other indebtedness 
upon either real or personal property. From the ac- 
laiowledgements of the owners a total of only $8,250 of 
mortgage indebtedness upon 33 pieces of real property 
was obtained, an average of $250 on each piece. The 
real figures are very much larger. There are, in ad- 
dition, many claims and liens held by ''time-payment" 
concerns that prey greedily upon the negro's monumen- 
tal cupidity and vanity. These claims are held against 
stock, pianos, organs, sewing machines, pictures and 
furniture. It is probable that one-fourth of the per- 
sonal property is more or less encumbered in this way. 
In its effects upon the negro as a potential property ac- 
cumulator, this system is exceedingly deplorable. 
Easily persuaded to invest by a plausible canvasser 
eager for his percentage, he remains the proud posses- 

(2) 



18 The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

sor of a squeaky melodeon or rattle-trap sewing machine 
for a few weeks or months, only to have it then taken 
from him because of his inability or disinclination to 
continue the burden of the weekly payments. 

To sum up, the returns seem to show that while as 
taxpayers simply the negroes are proportionately nearly 
as much in evidence as their white fellow-citizens, the 
free-holders among them are comparatively few. The 
showing is quite discouraging. There do not seem to 
be any very cogent reasons why the Columbia negroes 
have not accumulated more property. That a few have 
been able to make and save a great deal goes to show 
that the field has at least been open to their industry 
and enterprise. 

The causes for failure are doubtless many. The 
very low rate of wages obtained for such labor as the 
negro can do, together with the steadily rising price of 
real estate, even in the localities by rigid caste distinc- 
tion set aside for him, have something to do with the 
failure. But laziness, misdirected energy, lack of fore- 
sight, pleasure-seeking, immorality, have all been much 
more potent factors in keeping him in poverty. These 
traits lie at the root of his economic failure. 

Nor can it be said that there are any very hopeful 
local signs of betterment. The present wage and indus- 
trial situation in Columbia is as good, nay, it is much 
better than it has been in years. Wages have steadily 
risen all along the line of the negro's endeavor. Skilled 
workmen, reliable laborers and good servants are in 
great demand. That he appreciates this fact and pro- 
poses to make the best of it is not apparent. The aver- 
age negro in Columbia to-day is as shiftless and indif- 
ferent to the future as ever his predecessor was in 
slavery. As a laborer his chief characteristics are un- 
reliability and inability. If he has a dollar in his pocket 
he can not see the necessity for toil. He takes more 



Economic Conditions 19 

pleasure in the regalia of a secret society than in the 
comfort of his home. He will cheerfully give a tenth or 
a fifth of his weekly wage to a petty, and perhaps, fraud- 
ulent, society to insure the burial of his unworthy body 
with unbecoming pomp. But to lay aside as much per 
week against the coming of the inevitable "rainy day" 
is a feature of domestic economy utterly beyond his 
ability. Only three or four of all the Columbia negroes 
are members of the local building and loan association, 
and they are borrowers. 

There are, certainly, some conspicuous exceptions 
to these generalizations. Among Columbia's negro 
population are to be found men and women who by at- 
tention to duty, reliability, intelligent thrift, and, a rare 
virtffc among post-bellum blacks, a genuine interest in 
the affairs of their employers, have accumulated prop- 
erty and have won the respect of their white neighbors. 
It would have been a grateful task to the writer to en- 
large upon the affairs of this small minority, but space 
and time both forbade. Recognition of their worth 
ought not to be withheld, even though, as is the case, the 
white blood in their veins is largely accountable for 
their success. 

An interesting side-light is shed upon the negro's 
economic situation by the report of the Columbia Char- 
ity Organization Society for 1901- '02. Of the cases dealt 
with by this society, enumerated as families, 35 were 
whites and 33 negroes; enumerated as individuals 156 
were whites and 138 negroes. Even with due allowance 
made for 21 cases caused by a smallpox epidemic among 
the negroes in the winter of the period in question, the 
proportion of helpless or readily dependent poverty rep- 
resented by these figures is very high. 



CHAPTER III 



OCCUPATIONS AND WAGES 



How do all these negroes earn a living? is a ques- 
tion frequently asked in Columbia when, especially on 
Saturdays, hundreds of them are seen strolling aimlessly 
about or lounging at the street corners or in front of the 
dramshops. AVhat follows is probably the first system- 
atic attempt ever made to answer that question. Nor is 
it by any means an easy one to answer. The problem 
it raises is complicated and the difficulties in the way of 
its solution great. Here is a large group of pej^ons, 
most of them crassly ignorant, inefficient, and often dis- 
honest, in competition with a much larger group of well- 
trained, steady and masterful persons of a different 
race, upon whom it devolves in some wise, to solve the 
pressing problem of economic survival, the everlasting 
question of "bread." How do they do it? What do 
these 1,916 people do for a living! A detailed answer is 
found in the following schedule : 

Of 859 persons, 10 years old and over, (417 males 
and 442 females, or about four-fifths of all the race's 
wage-earners in Columbia) about whom reliable infor- 
mation could be obtained — 

Twenty-five were in the "learned" professions. 

Sixty were in "skilled" trades. 

Twenty-four were independent proprietors or in 
more or less responsible positions. 

One hundred and sixty-three were a superior class 
of laborers. 

One hundred and thirty-three were cooks. 

Two hundred and thirteen were laundresses. 

Two hundred and forty-one were common laborers. 

(20) 



Occupations and Wages 



21 



The gainful occupations of the males were divided 
into the following classes : 



Barbers 16. 
Butchers 2. 
Bartenders 3. 
Bricklayers 8. 
Blacksmiths 4. 
Clerks 5. 
Coachmen 4. 
Carpenters 3. 
Cooks 1. 
Contractors 3. 
Clergymen 4. 
Engineers 2. 
Farmliands 15. 
Houseservants 13. 
Hodcarriers 2. 
Janitors 8. 
Laborers 209. 
Millers 2. 
Messengers 5. 
Merchants 2. 
Miners 5. 
Total, 417. 



Musicians 1. 
Physicians 1. 
Plasterers 3. 
Pool-room proprietors 1. 
Painters and ]Daperers 3. 
Porters 4. 
Pedlers 1. 
Quarrjonen 2. 
Restaurateurs 1. 
Railroad employees 3. 
Stewards 6. 
Soldiers 1. 
Scullions 1. 
Scavengers 7. 
Shoeblacks 2. 
Teachers 3. 
Teamsters 54. 
Tailors 1. 
Tinners 1. 
Waiters 4. 
AVheelwrights 1. 



Among females the gainful operations divide as 



follows : 

Boarding-house keepers 1. 
Cooks 93. 
Housekeepers 36. 
Housegirls 45. 
Hairdressers 3. 
Laborers 11. 
Laundresses 213. 
Total, 442. 



Nurses 2. 
Pedlers 1. 
Seamstresses 14. 
Scullions 1. 
'* Students" 10. 
Teachers 7. 
Waitresses 5. 



22 The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

Observations on this exhibit seem to be needless. 
Every reader will note at once the poor showing made 
by skilled labor. The trained mechanic still remains 
in a pitiful minority amid a mob of common laborers, 
teamsters and others only a degree or two higher in the 
scale. The women are mostly cooks and laundresses, 
and very indifferent ones at that. The exhibit is ex- 
ceedingly discouraging, and all the more so when we call 
to mind the fact that Lincoln Institute, the State's nor- 
mal and industrial school for negroes, is located only 
thirty miles from Columbia, at Jefferson City, and has 
been there for thirty-five years ! 

The Wage Question. AVhat, now, is the earning 
capacity of the 859 persons engaged in these more or 
less gainful occupations? The reply will be found in 
the following tables, in which the wage-earners are di- 
vided into three classes as they earn, always according 
to their own statements, either from $1.00 to $5.00 per 
week, or from $5.00 to $10.00, or from $10.00 upwards. 
To the first class belong 151 males and 230 females ; to 
the second, 159 males and 53 females; to the third, 54 
males and no females. The decrease in the number of 
females in the second class and their total absence from 
the third is worthy of remark. There were 53 males 
and 149 females whose incomes could not be ascertained, 
but whose earning capacity is averaged, in a fourth col- 
umn, at $4.00 per week, certainly a high figure : 



Occupations and Wages 
Table of Weekly Wages of Males. 



23 



Occupations. 


$1 to 

$5 
per wk 


$.5 to 

$10 

per wk 


SlOup 
per wk 


Ave'ge 
of $4 
per wk 


Barbers 


4 


2 


10 




Bartenders .... 


1 




2 




Blacksmiths. . . 




7 


2 




Butchers 


1 


1 






Carpenters. . . . 


1 




2 




Clerks 


3 


1 




1 


Clergymen. . . . 


1 


1 


2 




Coachmen 


1 




2 






1 








Engineers 


2 








Farmhands. . . . 




9 




6 


Hodcarriers. . . 




2 


_ 




Houseservants. 


9 


1 




3 


Janitors 


5 


3 






Laborers 


74 


106 




29 


Masons 


2 


• 


G 




Messengers. . . . 


5 








Merchants 








2 


Millers 






1 


1 


Miners 


1 


1 


3 




Musicians 


1 








Painters and P 




3 






Peddlers 


1 








Plasterers 


1 


o 






Pool-room Prop.. 








1 


Porters 


2 


2 






Physicians. . . . 






1 




Quarrymen. . . . 




2 


1 




Railroad liands 




1 


2 




Restaurateur. . 








1 


Scavengers. . . . 


4 


1 




2 


Scullions 


1 








Shoeblacks. . . . 


2 








Soldiers 


1 








Stewards 








6 


Tailors 




1 






Teachers 


1 


2 






Teamsters 


18 


IG 


20 




Timers 




1 






Waiters 


4 








Wheelwrights. 






1 




Totals. . . . 


151 


159 


54 


53 



24 



The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 



If, now, we assume that the first class, earning be- 
tween $1.00 and $5.00 per week, averages at least $3.00 ; 
that the second class, earning from $5.00 to $10.00 per 
week, averages at least $7.00; that those of the third 
class, earning $10.00 and above, average at least $12.00, 
then, with the ' ' unknowns ' ' averaged at $4.00, we secure 
as the earning capacity per week for the first class, the 
sum of $453.00, for the second class $1,113.00, for the 
third class $594.00, and for the "unknowns" $212.00, 
or a grand total of $2,372.00 per week for all the wage- 
earning negro males of Columbia. By dividing this 
amount by 417, the total number of male wage-earners, 
we obtain $5.69 as the average weekly wage of negro 
men in Columbia. 



Weekly Wages of Females. 



Occupation 


$1 to 

$5 
per wk 


S5 to 

$10 

per wk 


$10 up 
per wk 


Ave'ge 
of S4 
per wk 


Boarding-house . . 


57 

4 
112 
8 
2 
1 
1 
9 
29 

2 
5 


15 

1 

30 

2 
5 




1 
21 

2 
32 
71 

3 
16 


Hairdressers. . 
Housekeepers. 
Laundresses. . . 

Laborers 

Nurses 

Peddlers 

Scullions 

Seamstresses. . 

Servants 

Students 

Teachers 

Waitresses. . . . 


Totals 


230 


57 




149 



Occupatioyis and Wages 25 

If, as in the case of the males, we assume that the 
first class averages at least $3.00, that the second class 
averages at least $7.00, that the "unknowns" (there are 
none of the third class) earn at least $4.00, we secure as 
the earning capacity of class one, $690.00, of class two 
$371.00, and of the "unknowns" $596.00, or a grand 
total of $1,657.00 per week for all the wage-earning 
negro females of Columbia. Dividing this amount by 
442, the total number of female wage-earners, we obtain 
$3.75 as the average weekly wage of negro women in 
Columbia. 

By adding the $2,372.00 earned by the men per week 
to the $1,657.00 earned by the women, we obtain $4,- 
029.00, a sum which is the money equivalent of the 
weekly ability of nearly all of Columbia's negro wage- 
earners of both sexes. 

If, once more, we divide this amount by 859, the 
whole number of negro wage-earners, we obtain $4.76, 
the equivalent in dollars and cents of the earning capac- 
ity per week of the average negro wage-earner of either 
sex. 

Again, by dividing the grand total, $4,029, by 1,916, 
Columbia's negro population, we find that the average 
man, woman and child has an income, from labor, of 
$2.10 per week. 

And this is practically all these people have to 
meet the expenses of living: to pay rent and taxes, to 
buy clothing and food, to provide church and lodge 
dues and insurance, to secure recreation, and to meet 
all the incidental demands of their situations, such as 
the doctor 's fees and medical supplies in case of illness. 

Of the 320 families reporting upon this particular 
point, only 133 had kitchen-gardens to help set the 
family table, and only 134 (frequently, of course, the 
same families) kept live stock (other than horses and 
mules, of which they had 96 head) to assist in increasing 



26 The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

the family income. Together the 134 families owned 
372 chickens and ducks, 204 hogs, and 58 cows and 
calves. 

There are in Columbia 18 negroes who are pen- 
sioners of the National Government. They receive, all 
told, $157.00 per month. Only 14 were found who had 
an income from rents. This source netted them, alto- 
gether, $141.00 per month. 

It will readily be seen that the "white folks" must 
gratuitously support, from their larders, by way of the 
backdoor, a large proportion of the negro population of 
the town. 

Since the above facts were collected a new enter- 
price has been started by several of the more intelligent 
and well-to-do negroes. It is a commercial venture in 
the shape of a, grocery store on a more extensive scale 
than anything heretofore attempted by members of the 
race in Columbia. It remains to be seen whether or no 
success will crown the undertaking. 

Domestic ''Help." A discussion of the "servant 
girl problem ' ' is not here proposed, nor yet an exhaus- 
tive statistical exhibition of the general domestic ser- 
vice existing in Columbia. What follows is offered 
simply in the way of "side-light" on the larger ques- 
tion of "master and servant" as it exists in the South. 

Accurate information was secured from 33 white 
families— all of them well-to-do, some wealthy— on the 
following points: (1) how many servants each em- 
ployed regularly; (2) what wages were paid; (3) how 
long they had been in their employ ; (4) how many had 
been employed in succession in three years past; (5) 
whether those now employed were over or under 50 
years of age. 

The intent of the last question was to discover, if 
possible, a difference in the efficiency and "staying 



Occupations and Wages 27 

quality" between those trained in slavery and those who 
have come upon the scene since the race obtained its 
freedom. 

The results are as follows: 

The 33 families were found to employ 39 servants, 
all of them negroes, as housegirls, cooks, nurses, and 
men-of-all-work. 

The wages paid ranged from $6.00 per month and 
'M^eep" (which frequently includes a room and fuel), 
for an untrained hand, to three times that sum for a 
competent servant. The average was $9.78 per month. 

During the three years preceding the enquiry these 
33 families had employed no less than 141 different ser- 
vants, or about 4 each, giving each servant an average 
of 9 months of service with a family. But it must be 
remembered that this average is secured by computing 
the terms of service of that kind of help which is at 
the command of well-to-do and wealthy families only. 
The general average term of sei*vice is much shorter. 

One of the 33 families reported having had 24 ser- 
vants in the three years ; another 17 ; and still another, 
12. Instances are numerous where the ''help" was 
changed as often as every month, or even every week, 
for months in succession. 

Thirty servants were under, only three over, 50 
years of age. 

It is the unanimous testimony of housekeepers that 
Columbia's colored "help" is, in nine out of every ten 
instances, utterly incompetent. It is ignorant, shiftless, 
lazy, impudent, and dishonest. But the whites have been 
so long accustomed to this kind of "help" in their homes 
that they accept the situation in a spirit of mingled in- 
dignant helplessness and philosophic resignation. 

Almost incredible are the experiences told by Co- 
lumbia housekeepers anent their relations with negro 
domestics. The problem seems to most of them a hope- 



28 The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

less one. Nothing can be done with subordinates who 
cannot learn, and would not if they could. 

There is, of course, a ' ' saving remnant, ' ' both men 
and women, of integrity and sufficient capacity. They 
are good citizens, and enjoy the confidence and respect 
of their white employers. It is a suggestive fact that 
they nearly all of them have much white blood in their 
veins. 

There are, all told, not a half-dozen white domestic 
servants in Columbia, The local poor whites do not 
seem inclined to dispute the negro's supremacy in this 
department, and no systematic effort has ever been 
made to introduce white "help" from abroad. 



CHAPTER IV 

BENEVOLENT, INSURANCE AND SOCIAL SOCIETIES 

An important feature of the social and economic 
situation of the negroes of Columbia, as elsewhere 
among the race in this country, is the rapid development 
and spread among them of all sorts of beneficial, insur- 
ance and '^ burial" societies. This is not, however, a 
phenomenon peculiar to negroes. The same craze is 
found among the whites, from whom the imitative 
negroes not only copy it, but by whom it is often im- 
posed upon them for selfish purposes of exploitation. 

The societies may be divided into two general 
classes, as they are organized and controlled by the 
negroes themselves, with functions partly economic and 
partly social, and as they are organized and managed 
for them by whites for purely insurance purposes, some- 
times honestly and sometimes, it is to be feared, to prey 
upon an all too gullible people. 

In Columbia there are at least eight societies of the 
former kind. Of these the Masons are the oldest, 
strongest, and most influential. The lodge was organ- 
ized in . Its meetings are held in a room in the 

Boone County National Bank building, in the very heart 
of the city. Another flourishing society of this class is 

that of the Odd Fellows, organized in . A very 

much younger, but very vigorous society is that of the 

Knights of Pythias, organized in . The purely 

negro societies (all of them, by the way, secret and 
ritualistic) sum up a total of 332 members, male and 
female, with initiation fees ranging from $1.50 to $25.00, 
monthly dues from $0.25 to $0.85, and death benefits 
from merely burial expenses up to burial expenses and 
$300.00 additional. Only one of the societies, the Odd 

(29) 



30 



The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 



Fellows, seems to allow a sick benefit, $3.00 per week. 
The 332 members, nearly one-sixth of Columbia's negro 
population, contribute regularly about $115.00 per 
month, or $1,380.00 per year into these societies as dues. 
This does not include the assessments which must nec- 
essarily follow upon any unusual increase in the death- 
rate of the membership. 

The following table gives a comprehensive view of 
the status of the various societies in the spring of 1902 : 

Negeo Secret Beneficial Societies. 



NAME. 


Mem- 
ber- 
ship 


Initia- 
tion 
Fee 


Mon- 
thly 
Dues 


BENEFITS 


Masons 


69 


m 00 


.50 


Burial expenses, $50.00, and for 
family of deceased, $100.00. 


Odd Fellows. . . . 


41 


*3 00 


.65 


At death, $175.00, Sick benefit of 
S3.00 per week. 


Knights of 
Pythias 


39 


$7 50 


.43 
to .85 


Burial expenses, and for family 
from $150.00 to $300.00. 


Independent Or- 
der of Seven . . . 


80 


S3 00 


.25 


Burial expenses, and for family 
$100.00. 


Old Order of 
Twelve 


20 


$3 50 


.35 


Burial expenses, and for family 

$75.00. 


Sisters and 
Brothers of 
Jerusalem. . . . 


12 


$1 50 


.35 


Burial expenses. 


Golden Queen 
Court 


50 




.25 


Burial expenses, 150.00. 




Union Benevo- 
lent Society. . . 


31 


$5 00 


.50 


Burial expenses, $60.00, and for 
family $100.00. 


Totals 


333 




fll5.00 





Societies 31 

But veiy much more important from an economic 
standpoint are the two organizations operating among 
the negroes of Columbia but controlled by whites. The 
one, a purely insurance concern, and presumably a 
thoroughly reliable one, is the Metropolitan Insurance 
Company of New York. Complete statistics of this com- 
pany's business with its local clients could not be ob- 
tained. It was a surprise to the writer to learn that, 
governed probably by the necessity imposed upon it by 
the impecuniosity of its dusky patrons, it does business 
with them almost entirely upon the petty five and ten 
cents weekly payments plan. It has between eight and 
nine hundred policy-holders in the county. The policies 
range from $100.00 up to $2,000.00. In April, 1902, it 
had in force one policy for $2,000.00, eighteen for 
$1,000.00, and thirty-seven for $500.00. The others 
were below the last-named figure and mostly for $100.00. 
It is perfectly safe to assume that its, say, 850 policy- 
holders pay $70.00 per week, or $3,640.00 per year to 
this concern as premiums. According to the company's 
agent the patrons keep up the payments of their pre- 
miums remarkably well. If he is not mistaken there is 
in this respect a vast difference between the patrons of 
his company and those of the ''Co-operative Mystic 
League," the other concern managed by whites doing 
business in Columbia. 

This ''League" was organized in 1896 and has at 
this writing (April, 1902) 341 members or holders of its 
certificates. The most valuable certificate issued 
matures at $2,000.00, the lowest at $200,00. The aver- 
age for those in force at the above date was $500.00. 

In addition to the insurance feature there is a "sick 
indemnity" scheme by which the highest certificate al- 
lows the holder a weekly benefit of $10.00 in case of 
sickness and the lowest a benefit of $2.50 in such a con- 
tingency. 



32 The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

The average cost to the 341 members of this com- 
bination sclieme is $0.50 per month per member. This 
would be about $2,000.00 per year for the entire mem- 
bership. 

Combining the annual dues paid by the members of 
the eight secret societies and the annual premiums paid 
to the two insurance companies gives us a grand total of 
$7,020.00 paid out per year by the Columbia negroes, 
mostly for the sake of a "respectable" burial. 

A still more interesting exhibit is obtained when we 
consider the following facts, cheerfully furnished to the 
writer by the accommodating manager of the ' ' League. ' ' 

Of the whole number admitted to membership dur- 
ing the past six years, 38.50 per cent, never made a 
second payment, frequently did not complete the j&rst; 
72 per cent, of them lapsed during the first year ; 5 per 
cent, more, after paying through the first year, lapsed 
during the next five years. In other words, 77 per cent, 
of the membership admitted during the past six years 
(since 1896) lapsed before the spring of 1902, leaving 
only a meagre 23 per cent, in force. 

Comment upon these figures is unnecessary. Every 
reader can draw his own conclusions about the negro's 
inability to persevere long in a course of action looking 
to a future good if it involves a present self-denial. It 
is doubtless true that many are overpersuaded by glib 
agents to join these concerns in the first instance. But 
it is also true that many of them could readily make 
their payments if they could forego the doubtful benefits 
of frequent railroad excursions and similar diversions. 
Lamentable improvidence and wastefulness seem to be 
inherent traits of negro character. 



CHAPTER V 



RELIGIOUS LIFE 



There was, of course, no such thing as a negro 
church in Columbia or Boone county before the Civil 
War. A few of the more intelligent and respectable 
negroes here as elsewhere were members of the white 
churches. For religious guidance and instruction the 
slaves were, as a rule, dependent almost entirely upon 
the thoughtfulness of the wives and daughters of their 
owners and upon the more or less fitful ministrations 
of the pastors of white churches. Negro ' ' preachers, ' ' 
so called, sometimes held services in the white churches 
when these could be obtained, but the exercises, even 
amid the restraining influence of this environment, were 
usually only a shade removed from those current in the 
'' quarters" and fields. Rapt songs, weird and plain- 
tive music, sensuous exercises, exclamations and wails, 
together with ''sermons" best described as "loud and 
long," made up the staple of worship. 

Immediately after the war two negro preachers, 
W. P. Brooks, still living in Moberly, Missouri, and 
Barton Hillman, appeared upon the scene and organized 
in Columbia what is now the Second Baptist church, in 
the house occupied by Thad Lang. Soon after, in 1868, 
the African Methodist Episcopal church entered this 
field. The third organization was not effected until 
1879, when a congregation of the Methodist Episcopal 
denomination came into being. The same year gave 
birth to the fourth and last church, that of the Christian 
Campbellites. 

The following table gives a comprehensive view 
of the numerical and financial strength and the 

(33) 3 



34 



The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 



benevolent activities of these churches. It will be seen 
that the two Methodist branches have a very decided 
numerical majority. They are followed, at some dis- 
tance, by the Baptists, and far to the rear by the Chris- 
tian Campbellites. The financial showing is chiefly re- 
markable because it reveals the fact that the 710 negro 
church members of Columbia give little or nothing for 
home and foreign missions or for local charities. About 
ten cents per member per year for these purposes and 
three dollars for all other purposes, does not reveal a 
very altruistic conception of religious obligation. 

The Negro Churches of Columbia. 



Denomi- 
nation. 


Mem- 
bers'? 


Pastor's 
Salary 


For 
H.&F. 

Miss. 


For 
Cha'ty 


For In- 
cid'lEx 


Value of 
Ch. Blci'g. 


Value of 
Parsonage 


Total Debt 


Baptist . . 

A. M. E. 
M. E. . . . 
Christian 


251 

239 

162 

58 

710 


$ 600.00 

1,000.00 

200.00 


$20.00 

17.00 

5.00 

.90 


$15.00 
11.00 


$210.00 

300.00 

125.00 

60.00 


$12,500.00 

10,000.00 

4,000.00 

1,000.00 




$4,500.00 

300.00 

1,700.00 


$ 700.00 
300.00 








Totals. 


$1,800.00 


$42.90 


$26.00 


$695.00 


$27,500.00 


$1,000.00 


$6,500.00 



The church buildings belonging to these different 
sects reflect to a certain extent the somewhat unusual 
munificence of the white congregations of Columbia in 
providing for themselves elegant edifices in which to 
worship God. The negro Baptist denomination, for ex- 
ample, has property on Broadway, Columbia's main 
thoroughfare, on which three of the white churches are 
situated, which is valued at $12,500. Their house of 
worship is illustrated on another page. The African 
Methodist Episcopal denomination has property in 
the heart of the negro section valued at $10,000. The 
Methodist Episcopal church owns property worth 
$4,000. The Christian Campbellites value their frame 
house and lot at $1,000.00. How much of all this prop- 



Religious Life 35 

erty was secured by persistent and extensive begging 
from the whites it is, of course, impossible to say. Nor 
must it be overlooked that it is still heavily encumbered 
with debt. But we have, nevertheless, the curious phe- 
nomenon of 1,916 negroes, composing 33.90 per cent of a 
community's population (but holding only 4.09 per cent, 
of that community's property, and represented in 
scarcely any line of business enterprise whatever) 
owning church property equal in value to nearly one- 
third of all their other property. When he attends 
church the Columbia negro is in surroundings not at all 
commensurate with his financial ability. The meager 
exhibit of the foregoing table in the way of contributions 
for other than local needs need not, therefore, sur- 
prise us. 

The pastors of these churches at this writing are all 
men past middle life. In native ability, training and 
conduct they are probably quite above the average of 
the many negro "preachers" that infest the South, and 
curse rather than bless their people. Two of them have 
only anordinaiy grammar school education, one is a 
graduate of a high school and holds, in addition, a de- 
gree of ''Master of Ancient Languages" from an ob- 
scure school somewhere in Missouri, and the other has 
enjoyed special theological training under the direction 
of a white minister. Careful inquiry among the mem- 
bers of the churches tailed to find more than an occas- 
ional regret, from the intelligent and progressive, that 
the pulpit ministrations of these men were intellectually 
and spiritually far too shallow to be of any value to 
their auditors. But, as in the case of many a white min- 
ister, the negro preacher simply obeys the law of supply 
and demand. He is content to achieve, as a rule, the 
standard which his flock sets for him. Poor leadership 
morally and empty sermons intellectually are much 
more easily condoned by the ordinary negro congrega- 



36 The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

tion than inability to draw the crowd and secure money 
and erect showy church edifices. 

Negro religious life in the United States is some- 
thing entirely unique, and the negro churches are its 
peculiar product. As elsewhere, the Columbia negro 
churches are primarily so many social centers around 
which the life of given groups revolve. Here, in addi- 
tion to the baptisms, weddings, and funerals furnished 
by the natural course of events, are given concerts, sup- 
pers, fairs, literary exercises and other celebrations. 
Here societies, beneficial and otherwise, find congenial 
soil and atmosphere. Even the Sunday services, especi- 
ally at night, frequently partake more of the nature of a 
social entertainment than of an earnest and devout at- 
tempt to worship God. The congregations are, as a 
rule, well behaved and well dressed, but there is a good 
deal of stirring about and suppressed excitement, and 
often considerable noise. The observer can plainly see 
two distinct elements engaged in a kind of struggle for 
supremacy, the old-time and fast disappearing "darky" 
with his "hallelujah religion" of genuine even though 
hysterical emotion, and the more "proper" younger 
generation with its efforts to imitate the perfunctory 
and sterotyped services of the white churches. The lat- 
ter element will, of course, prevail. 

The ordinary service consists of a great deal of 
music and singing after their kind, and a great deal of 
preaching after its kind. It is a pity that it cannot 
truthfully be said that the intelligent negro gets any 
real help from the pulpit efforts of his pastor. The 
preacher, as a rule, does little more than point out and 
urge, at the expense of much physical energy, certain 
well-known moral precepts. "Do right and you will go 
to heaven," is the burden of his message. Of course, 
if he himself should live up to this ideal and could get 
his people to follow, a vast deal of good would be ac- 



Religious Life 37 

complislied. But, alas, in this also the negro is much 
like his white brother. The offertory is a feature never 
neglected and always emphasized. In fact, this part of 
the exercises not infrequently becomes the piece de 
resistance of the occasion. Taken all in all, there is 
very little in the service that bears directly upon the 
lives of an humble, ignorant and helpless people. Im- 
morality^ of conduct and a very devout spirit still go 
hand in hand. Theft, drunkenness and lewdness are 
looked upon by the great majority as leniently as ever. 
Nor are they, on that account, chargeable with hypoc- 
risy. The simple explanation is that a long and dark 
heredity has made it almost impossible for them rightly 
to adjust the relation between morality and religion. 
Superstition, especially a belief in witchcraft, as infan- 
tile as it is gross, still burdens their minds and hearts. 
At this writing the family cook is regaling her mistress 
with a recent terrible experience with a ''hant." And 
this woman is young, above the average in intelligence, 
a devout church-member and a competent servant, long 
accustomed to intercourse with the best white families. 



CHAPTER VI 



EDUCATION 



Although the Statutes of Missouri were never dis- 
graced by legislation directly prohibiting the education 
of the slaves within her borders, the slave-holding por- 
tion of her people seem to have felt, with the same class 
all over the South, that the mental improvement of the 
slaves meant their dissatisfaction and possible insurrec- 
tion and rebellion. The submission of the man with the 
dark skin was best secured by keeping his mind dark. 
Hence, persons of African descent, either free or slaves, 
who could read or write, were always striking exceptions 
to the prevailing illiteracy and mental stupor. Occasion- 
ally, as in an instance or two in Columbia, the anomal- 
ous situation was i^resented in which children of well- 
to-do and refined families received their earliest instruc- 
tion from an intelligent house-servant, sometimes a 
hired man or woman, sometimes a slave, 
^ Immediately after the cataclysm of the Civil War, 
and hand in hand with the efforts at political reconstruc- 
tion, inroads upon the negro's centuries of ignorance 
began to be made by many more or less self-appointed 
educational missionaries from the North, as well as by 
the National Government through the Freedmen's Bu- 
reau. But the efforts were usually ill-advised, and the 
result was an almost irreparable injury to the race. 
Happily for the negroes of Columbia, their mental im- 
provement was left entirely to their own care and that 
of those who understood them best— the white people 
of their own immediate neighborhood, their former 
masters. 

The new Drake Constitution, a Republican instru- 
ment adopted in 1865, contained the (for Missouri) ex- 
traordinary provision that "separate schools may be 

(38) 



Education 39 

established for children of African descent. All funds 
provided for the support of public schools shall be ap- 
propriated in proportion to the number of children, with- 
out regard to color. ' ' This provision was, of course, ex- 
traordinary, not because there might be separate schools 
for the negroes, but because there might be schools for 
them at all. 

Acting under the authority of this constitutional 
provision, a succeeding Democratic Assembly declared 
that ' ' The board of education of any city, town or vil- 
lage, is hereby required to provide separate schools for 
such colored children as may reside within the limits of 
said city, town, or village. ' ' A further indication of the 
real state of public opinion on the question of separate 
schools for the races is given by the Democratic Consti- 
tution of .1875, which ordains that ' ' separate free public 
schools shall be established for the education of children 
of African descent." The Assembly of 1889 ordered 
the establishment of such separate schools whenever 
there should be in any school district fifteen or more ne- 
gro children of school age, such schools to be the same in 
conduct, management, control, advantages and priv- 
ileges as for the white schools of corresponding grade. 
This Assembly also made it unlawful for a negro child 
to attend a white school or for a white child to attend 
a negro school. A subsequent Legislature made provis- 
ion for combining contiguous school districts in which 
the number of children of school age was less than 
fifteen in each. 

But in Columbia the education of the f reedmen did 
not await the putting in motion of tardy and cumbrous 
government machinery. The high honor of recognizing 
and promptly acting upon the conviction, that the wel- 
fare of their race demanded the education of the chil- 
dren, belongs to four negro men, Gilbert Akers, John 
Lang, Louis Fisher, and Beverly Chapman. It was 
mainlv through the efforts of these men, the former two 



40 The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

always free negroes, the latter one-time slaves, that the 
negroes themselves, aided by their white friends, raised 
a sufficient sum of money to erect the shell of a two- 
storied house as a school for negro children, on a lot 
(No. 309 of the town of Columbia) deeded for church 
and educational yj^rposes by Gilbert Akers and wife for 
a nominal sum. Later, in 1868, the Freedmen's Bu- 
reau at Washington appropriated $800.00 in aid of the 
enterprise. But for this money to become available it 
was necessary that the school property be placed under 
the control of a separate board, to be held ' ' in trust for 
school purposes for the sole and exclusive use and ben- 
efit of the colored people of said township. ' ' This was 
accordingly done, Gilbert Akers and wife formally con- 
senting. Thus was launched the first negro school in 
Columbia, in Boone county and probably in central Mis- 
souri. It began its career with sixty pupils and two 
teachers, and was named, in honor of Chas. E. Cum- 
mings, its first principal and a negro of education and 
integrity, ''Cummings Academy." 

Soon afterward, as early as 1872, this ' ^ Academy ' ' 
became a part of the public school system of Columbia 
township, and since that time has shared the varying 
fortunes of that system. In — the original "Cummings 
Academy" was destroyed by fire. In 1885 the board of 
education replaced it, on another lot, with the present 
substantial brick structure, issuing for the purpose, upon 
a practically unanimous vote of the district, $5,000.00 
worth of 6 per cent, bonds. The new structure was 
called ''The Frederick Douglass School," in honor of 
the distinguished negro of that name. 

This building, reproduced on another page, is a two- 
storied brick structure, containing eight spacious rooms. 
It has a convenient seating capacity for 400 pupils and 
seems amply large enough for present demands. The 
rooms are well lighted, and are heated by steam; but 
they are kept none too clean. Hat and cloak rooms 




rOLORED BAPTIST CIII'RCII, COLT'MBIA. 




FRED DOUGLASS SCHOOL FOR COI^ORED CIirLDREN. 



Education 



41 



seem to be entirely wanting. The exterior of the build- 
ing is bare and dingy, and the grounds innocent of all 
improvements. 

Statistics to assist in tracing the progress of negro 
education in Columbia are almost entirely lacking. Here 
as elsewhere in the slave-holding communities it took 
the authorities a long time to appreciate the fact that, no 
longer chattels to be valued at so many dollars per head, 
the negroes were still worth counting, except, indeed, for 
political purposes. But the following table throws at 
least some light into the darkness. It contains, as far 
as authentic figures can be found, the enumeration of 
negro children of school-age (6 to 20 years) in the school 
district from year to year since 1867 ; the number actu- 
ally enrolled at school each year since that date ; the per- 
centage of enumerated actually enrolled ; as well as other 
interesting data : 

Negeo School Statistics of Columbia Since 1867. 



Year. 


Enu 


Enr 


Per ct of 
Enumer. 


No. 
T's. 


Average 
Salary. 


School 
Term 


1887-8 


373 


63 


16.09 


2 






1881-2 


470 


264 


56.17 








1887-8 


562 


364 


64.77 








1890-1 








7 


40.00 


160 


1891-2 


630 






7 


40.00 


180 


1892-3 


681 






7 


40.00 


180 


1893-4 


681 


456 


66.96 


7 


40.00 


180 


1894-5 


581 


405 


69.07 


7 


40.00 


180 


1895-6 


699 


420 


60.08 


7 


40.00 


180 


1896-7 


768 






8 


40.62 


180 


1897-8 


746 


411 


59.09 


8 


40.62 


180 


1898-9 


808 


395 


48.55 


8 


40.62 


180 


1899-0 


797 


387 


48.55 


8 


40.62 


180 


1900-1 


829 


358 


43.18 


8 


40.62 


180 


1901-2 


763 


378 


49.54 


8 


43.12 


180 


1902-3 


758 


417 


55.00 


8 


43.12 


180 



42 The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

These figures are both encouraging and discourag- 
ing. It is significant of the eagerness with which the 
emancipated slave invaded the Promised Land of learn- 
ing that almost immediately upon the opening of ' ' Cum- 
mings Academy, ' ' its capacity was severely taxed. And 
it is interesting to note that for nearly an entire genera- 
tion, up to 1895, or during the influence of those who 
had come directly under the sway of the surpassing joys 
and hopes of emancipation, the high-tide of desire for 
an education was steadily maintained. As late as the 
school-year of 1894-5 as many as 69.07 per cent, of the 
enumerated children between 6 and 20 years of age 
were attending school. But during the succeeding year 
the percentage dropped to 60.08 ; in 1898-9 it was 48.88, 
and in 1900-1 it went down to 43.18. In 1901-2 there 
a slight increase, and a still further one in 1902-3. It 
must be added that this decrease in attendance can, in 
part, be accounted for by local conditions, such as bitter 
opposition to the school's principal by a part of the 
negro population. 

These are the discouraging figures. They seem to 
indicate that the present generation of Columbia 
negroes cares less for the benefits of education than the 
the one immediately preceding and coming up from 
slavery. It is not easy to suggest an explanation. The 
decline in attendance began upon the heels of the finan- 
cial panic of 1893-4. Perhaps, the pressure for existence 
having become heavier, it was found impossible to keep 
the children at school as long as formerly. As a matter 
of fact, only an insignificant percentage of the 378 en- 
rolled in 1901-2 were over 15 years old. Perhaps (and 
this would be the sadder), the race is losing heart, has 
given up hope of betterment, is becoming indifferent to 
the advantages of an education, and is content to let the 
coming generation shift for itself as best it can with- 
out it. ^ 



Education 43 

There may be still another explanation. It is pos- 
sible that a kind of sifting process is going on within 
the race which is separating the chaff from the wheat. 
The former, having lost the impetus of hope imparted 
by freedom and equality, is sinking back into confirmed 
ignorance and its concomitant conditions ; the latter, rep- 
resenting what is best in negro blood, is persevering to- 
ward the goal set for itself when freedom first beckoned 
to achievement. 

But we must note, on the other hand, the steadily 
increasing efficiency of the school itself. While the 
negro patrons seem to be becoming somewhat indiffer- 
ent to the value of an education, their white guardians 
are steadily, if slowly, increasing their opportunities to 
equip themselves for life's struggles, and this in the face 
of the fact that the negroes pay practically nothing to- 
ward the task in the way of taxes, only about $700.00 
out of a total of $18,000.00, and seem, in addition, quite 
indifferent to the efforts to improve their conditions in 
this respect. 

The Fred Douglass school-building is as good as 
many and better than some buildings for the use of 
white children in communities no smaller than Colum- 
bia. The teachers are usually the best that can be had 
for the salaries offered. 

The curriculum of studies, embracing seven grades 
is, to all intents and purposes, that of the white schools. 

The school is not, of course, in articulation with the 
local white high school, SDut has a high-school depart- 
ment of its own, in which pupils are carried as far as 
the end of the second year 's course in the white school, 
and its certificates are accepted by the Lincoln Institute, 
the State's normal school for negroes, at Jefferson City, 
Missouri; by Smith College, at Sedalia, Missouri, and 
by the Western College, at Macon, Missouri ; both negro 
institutions. During the session of 1902-3 Lincoln Insti- 



44 J^he Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

tute had ten graduates of the Douglass School ; Smitk 
College had one ; the Western College, two. This show- 
ing does not reveal a very passionate craving for 
"higher education" on the part of Columbia's negro 
youth. The fact that there were ten graduates (seven 
women and three men) at Lincoln Institute, where nor- 
mal, industrial, and agricultural training receive em- 
phasis, is, however, a wholesome feature of an otherwise 
discouraging situation. 



CHAPTER VII 



HEALTH AND MOEALS 



The negro 's vitality, his ability to resist the rigors 
of climate and the inroads of disease, satisfy the inex- 
orable law of labor, and propagate his kind is, for the 
race itself, the most important phase of the problem we 
are considering. 

The evidence furnished by the United States census 
seems incontrovertibly to show that the negro has much 
less power of resistance in the struggle for life than his 
Caucasian competitor. This holds true both North and 
South, and from Maine to Florida. The statistics upon 
which this conclusion is based have usually been gath- 
ered in the larger cities, the congested centers of popula- 
tion where the death-rate, for obvious seasons, is higher 
than elsewhere. But approximately the same results 
are obtained by the investigations in Columbia. In the 
United States the average age at death, for whites is 
35.8 years, for colored (which includes a negligible num- 
ber of Chinese, etc.), it is 28.0 years. The following 
table is of great interest : 



(45) 



46 



The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 



Death Rate foe Certain Causes, by Race, U. S. 
Census, 1900. 



Causes. 


White. 


Negro. 


Cancer and Tumor 

Consumption 

Diarrheal Diseases 


66.7 

173.5 

129.5 

45.9 

137.4 

23.6 

22.8 

6.5 

13.1 

213.7 

53.5 

184.8 

12.0 

32.4 

99.8 


48.0 

485.4 

214.0 

32.0 

221.1 

32.0 

20.9 

63.2 

15.2 

308.0 

66.7 

355.3 

2.6 

67.5 

157.3 


Diphtheria 


Heart Disease and Dropsy . . 

Influenza 

Liver, diseases of 

Malarial Fever — 

Measles 


Nervous System, diseases of 

OldAge 

Pneumonia 


Scarlet Fever 

Typhoid Fever 


Urinary Organs, diseases of 



The noticeable feature of this table is the tremen- 
dously high rate for the negroes shown for the more or 
less constitutional diseases like consumption, pneu- 
monia, and heart and nervous diseases. 

It is to be regretted that it was found impossible to 
treat this important phase of the subject with the fullness 
of detail it deserves and demands. But in Columbia, as 
in other small communities, vital statistics are un- 
known quantities. There is not even such a simple pro- 
cess as the recording of births and deaths.* Hence, the 
meagerness of the following figures and the vagueness 
of the generalizations. 

During the year closing with October, 1901, there 
were no less than 48 deaths among the negroes of Co- 
lumbia, giving a death-rate of 24 per 1,000. Thirty- 



*The next Missouri legislature ought to remedy this serious obstacle to 
all kinds of sociological investigations. 



Health and Morals 47 

four of them were of adults and 14 of children. They 
were due to at least 20 causes. We give them in detail 
for what they are worth as information: accidents 4, 
bronchitis 3, croup 1, childbirth 1, cancer 1, cholera in- 
fantum 1, gangrene of lungs 1, la grippe 1, measles 1, 
senile debility 2, pneumonia 5, rheumatism 2, scarlet 
fever 1, spasms 1, inflammation of stomach 1, tonsilitis 
1, tuberculosis 5, tumor 1, typhoid 6, whooping-cough 2, 
unknown (infants) 7. 

A further interesting but limited collection of data 
was furnished by Columbia's only negro physican, Dr. 
Perry, a man of education and ability in his profession. 
From January 1 to April 1, 1902, a most trying season 
of the year. Dr. Perry had under treatment the follow- 
ing 103 cases of diseases : asthma 1, aneurism 1, bron- 
chitis 1, convulsion 1, chronic gastritis 1, eczema 3, fe- 
male diseases 15, general dibility 8, heart disease 3, in- 
sanity 1, la grippe 6, pneumonia 11, rheumatism 6, 
smallpox 11, scarlet fever 5, sexual diseases 14, tonsilitis 
5, tuberculosis 11. 

The notable things about these two lists are, first, 
the large number ill with and dying from lung troubles, 
pneumonia and tuberculosis; second, the large number 
under treatment for sexual diseases, chiefly gonorrhoea. 

The explanations of the high death-rate among Co- 
lumbia negroes lie upon the surface. A large propor- 
tion of them, particularly children, do not receive ad- 
equate medical attention in illness. If the fact shown 
above, that 14 of the 48 deaths in 1901 were of children, 
and the additional fact that at the same time only 161 
children over 6 years of age could be found, have any 
significance, then either the infant mortality must be 
frightful, or there must be a still more hideous explana- 
tion. The high mortality is due, often, to ignorance, to 
the prohibitive cost of professional aid, and to positive 
criminal neglect on the part of parents. The sanitary 



48 The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

conditions prevailing in the sections by rigid caste selec- 
tion set aside for negro residents are simply appalling. 
The houses are, as a rule, one, two, or three-room 
' ' shacks ' ' into which large families are indiscriminately 
crowded. AVater for all purposes is generally drawn 
from unwholesome wells or cisterns. Garbage, in the 
majority of cases, is thrown into the yard to the chickens 
and hogs, or left there to decay and breed its disease, 
dispensing germs in air and water and soil. This was 
the actual condition of things in 73 out of 132 houses 
inspected. The interiors were little if any better. Out 
of 208 examined, 57 had to be classed as "bad," fre- 
quently "very bad;" 60 as "fair;" and only 91 as 
"good." It is a perfectly fair statement that 50 per 
cent, of the negro houses of Columbia are in every way 
unfit to be classed as ' ' houses ' ' at all. A very few com- 
pare favorably with the houses of well-to-do whites. 
The two extremes are illustrated on another page. 

It must be added that, simply as places put up for 
human habitations, a large proportion of these houses 
ought to be condemned and torn down. Certainly, a 
heavy weight of responsibility rests here upon some 
property owners, either too thoughtless or too greedy to 
make even the most needful repairs. The houses are 
often so poorly constructed that they keep out neither 
summer rains nor winter snows. Floors are frequently 
on the ground, and ceilings low. City water is only 
occasionally found. There is neither plumbing nor 
drainage. Bath-rooms are practically unlmown. The 
city sewer is easily within reach, but it is folly to expect 
owners to make costly connections when the houses are 
only worth from $50.00 to $150.00 ! Noxious vermin 
abound and little effort is made to exterminate them. 
The results of all this upon the health of the occupants 
can easily be imagined. 

Why do not these people refuse to live in such 




OXE OF TIIK BEST XEOUO HOMES IN COLUMBIA. 







^^LlW^ 


JjjL 


''^y^9^SR^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 


l^^mK^wlStP^flWMKKK^iJllSmM 


i^l^^^^HH^^ 


iIPSWHKK^fflMJi^H 



OXE OF THE WORST NEGRO HOMES IN COLUMBIA. 



Health and Morals 



49 



quarters? The question betrays the ignorance of him 
who asks it. Many of these people have no desire to 
leave their wretched houses, and many of them could 
not if they would. Their incomes make better accom- 
modations impossible. 

A glance at the following comprehensive table of 
housing conditions among the Columbia negroes will 
reveal a frightfully typical state of affairs : 

Housing Conditions Among Columbia Negroes. 



Rooms 
Occupied 


Number in Family. 


Fam's. 


Tnd'ls. 


1 


2 


3 

4 


4 


5 
1 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


1 


2 


4 


3 


3 












20 


78 


2 


4 


23 


22 


17 


17 


16 


3 


3 


2 


1 




1 


109 


438 


3 


6 


17 


19 


22 


19 


17 


8 


6 


3 


2 


2 




121 


540 


4 


1 


6 


10 


12 


7 


1 


7 


2 


5 










51 


236 


5 






3 


3 


2 










1 








9 


41 


6 






1 






1 


3 














5 


30 


7 






1 


1 




















2 


7 


8 
































9 
































10 








1 




















1 


4 




Totals 


318 


],374 



Three hundred and eighteen families are included 
in this table. They sum up 1,374 individuals. Of this 
total number of families 186 were renters and 132 owned 
the places which they called ' ' home. ' ' Under what con- 
ditions are they housed? The table reveals that 
20 families, with 78 individuals, an average of 4 to the 
family, occupy, each, 1 room ; 109 families, with 438 in- 
dividuals, occupy, each, 2 rooms, or 2 persons to a room ; 
but one of these families has 12 members, or 6 persons 
to a room; another has 10 members, or 5 persons to a 
room ; two others have 9 members ; three have 8 ; and 

4 



50 The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

three 7. 121 families, with 540 individuals, occupy, 
each, 3 rooms, or about one and a half persons to a 
room ; but two of these families have 11 members ; two 
have 19 ; three have 9 ; and six have 8. Fifty-one famil- 
ies, with 236 individuals, occupy, each, 4 rooms, or about 
1 for each room ; but five of these families have 9 mem- 
bers ; two have 8 ; and seven have 7. Nine families, with 
41 individuals, occupy, each, 5 rooms, or 1 to a room; 
but one of these families has ten members. 

Only those who have thoughtfully explored these 
habitations can begin to conceive the pitiful, tragic and 
inevitable results of this close herding together of men, 
women and children, not only members of families, but 
even boarders, often into a single room under circum- 
stances where modesty must be forever a stranger and 
in which vice ensues as certainly as physical disease 
grows out of the noxious hygienic situations. \ATiat 
kind of traditions, sentiments and affections about the 
home and family can develop under such conditions, in 
such an atmosphere? Is it any wonder that the mono- 
gamic family with its chivalrous treatment of woman 
and parental responsibility, does not appeal to the aver- 
age negro 1 One result is seen in the fact that although 
the negro population of Boone county is less than 
one-fifth that of the whites, it furnishes almost exactly 
as many actual divorces, or, in proportion to the popu- 
lation, approximately 500 per cent more than the whites ! 
From 1898 to 1902, inclusive, 117 divorces were granted 
by the Boone County Circuit Court, of which 56 were to 
negroes, 55 to whites and 6 unascertainable. Said a 
member of the race and an earnest worker for its better- 
ment: ''IVliat can one do for people who insist on liv- 
ing ten in a room, and two of them just married?" 
AVhat, indeed? 

And now, what do those who rent pay for their 
wretched accommodations! The figures are tabulated 
below and speak for themselves : 



Health and Morals 51 

Table of Rents Paid by Columbia Negroes. 



Rent 

per 

month. 


No. 


of Rooms 


Occupied. 


Total 

Fami- 
lies 


Total. 


1 


2 


o 


4 


5 






1.00 




1 








1 


$ 1.00 


2.00 


3 


2 




1 




6 


12.00 


3.00 


6 


6 


5 






17 


51.00 


4.00 


1 


23 


11 


2 


1 


43 


172.00 


5.00 


3 


45 


22 


4 


2 


76 


380.00 


6.00 




5 


18 


6 




29 


174.00 


7.00 






5 


2 


1 


8 


56.00 


8.00 






4 






4 


32.00 


9.00 
















10.00 








1 


2 


o 


30.00 




13 


87 


65 


15 


6 


186 


$908.00 



Total rent paid, per month, $908.00 ; per year, $10,- 
896. Total number of families included in table, 186. 
Average rent per family per month, $5.81; per year, 
$69.72. 

But after all that can be said about the hygienic and 
sanitary conditions existing among the negroes and op- 
erating as causes for the high death rate among them, it 
remains to be stated that the most potent cause of all is 
the negro's constitutional weakness and defect. 
Whether such weakness and defect be an inheritance 
from his forebears in Africa, or a result of climate, or 
of debauchery and vice since his transplantation to 
America, the fact of its existence seems to be unques- 
tioned. In Columbia almost the entire negro popula- 
tion is more or less tainted by syphilitic poisoning and is 
on that account, peculiarly liable to tubercular diseases. 
Pneumonia and consumption are the negro's most 
dreaded scourges. 



52 The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

Whether or not the ravages of disease can be stop- 
ped at this late day, is an open question. The radical 
difficulty in the way of effectual remedy is the stubborn 
fact that the causes of the excessive mortality lie not 
merely in the conditions of life as they now obtain, but 
in race traits and tendencies also. And these traits and 
tendencies have been emphasized by generations of vic- 
ious practices, and to-day bad whiskey, cocaine, unsani- 
tary surroundings, and sexual immorality continue the 
sad work of debilitation. Signs of recuperation are not 
perceptible. In Columbia improvement in housing con- 
ditions, the observance of the simplest rules of sanita- 
tion, at least a relative moral reformation through the 
establishment of something like a true home life, must 
precede any possible improvement in the negro 's ability 
to resist disease. Under present conditions the possi- 
bility of materially lessening the death-rate is very re- 
mote indeed. 

That the birth rate among negroes is in excess of 
that among the whites is a fact usually assumed but not 
always borne out by the figures. AVhere statistics have 
been gathered in the Northern States they usually give 
an excessive mortality with a very low birth-rate, reveal- 
ing the fact that the race is not self-sustaining in those 
latitudes.* In harmony with these results it was found 
that only 34 negro children were born in Columbia in 
1901, giving a birth-rate of 17 -f per thousand, against a 
death-rate of 24 -f. But the birth-rate would always be 
much higher if nature's process were not so generally 
interfered with. Among the negroes, as among the 
whites, also, the birth-rate is inextricably involved with 
their morals, and statistics are altogether unreliable as 
indices of their ability to hold their own numerically. 
Birth-rate statistics of negroes in Columbia simply show 
how many children, legitimate or otherwise, the mothers 



♦Hoffman, Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, eh. II. 



Health and Morals 53 

have seen fit to allow to be born. Thus, the fact that only 
161 children under 6 years of age could be found at a 
given date, and the further fact that there were not less 
than 60 couples living together as husbands and wives, 
who were childless, does not necessarily mean a nat- 
urally low birth-rate, or a high infant mortality. These 
figures are much more eloquent of a more frightful fact, 
that of deliberate pre-natal murder. Reliable local med- 
ical authority informs the writer that "dozens" of un- 
born children are disposed of every year, either by the 
mothers directly or by the aid of medical quacks for a 
trifling fee. 

The negroes are still controlled by animal impulses. 
One of the things which distinguishes them, as a race, 
from the Caucasians, is their "sensual concretism. "* 
Physical stimulation is their chief craving and highest 
enjoyment. Their inclinations in any direction are seldom 
checked by reason. In the case of nature 's most potent 
instinct of sex, a scarcely appreciable proportion of the 
race ever makes any effort whatever to keep it within 
due metes and bounds. Sadly deficient morally as 
slaves, they are even more imperfect to-day. Hence, 
the relations existing between the sexes are exceedingly 
lax. As a matter of fact we seem to have, in Columbia, 
a perilous approach to that state of promiscuity postu- 
lated by a certain school of anthropologists as man's 
most primitive sexual condition. The whites usually 
assume it as a common-place that all negro women have 
a price. But it can not be too emphatically said that 
this is certainly too sweeping and does a grievous injus- 
tice to the worthy few. Repeated inquiries of members 
of the race itself both men and women, elicited the opin- 
ion that at least 85 or 90 per cent of the women were un- 
chaste. Though this estimate may be too high, yet 
the pitiful thing is that the impropriety and 



*Schnltze, Psychologie der Xaturvolker, p. 38. 



54 The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

depravity of sexual immorality is only dimly appreci- 
ated even by the few virtuous ones. A part of the 
responsibility for this state of things can not, of course, 
be evaded by the whites. Too little is done by them to 
make the negro better in this respect. 

In Columbia as, unfortunately, everywhere else, lax 
sexual relations exist not only among negro men and 
women, but also (and of more importance, because of 
its results upon the races) between white men and negro 
women, especially mulattoes. The condition is locally 
doubtless accentuated by the presence of an unusually 
large number of males. But whatever its cause, the 
condition exists, and a visit to the Fred Douglass school, 
or observation of any large gathering of negro children, 
will vividly reveal by the surprising number of mulat- 
toes, quadroons and octoroons,the results of what is con- 
stantly going on but what everybody is quite willing to 
ignore or forget— race amalgamation! In Columbia 
it is going on steadily, increasingly. The distinct negro 
type, dolichocephalic, prognathous, kinkyhaired, and 
black, is gradually disappearing, and the mulatto, and 
quadroon types are steadily becoming more evident. 
But, unhappily, already weak and tainted, the accession 
of new blood from the Caucasian obtained by the 
negroes through this inter-racial concubinage and pros- 
titution is not always the most desirable. And even if 
it were, the ultimate result would still be doubtful. 
History supplies us with quite a number of reliable 
examples of badly adjusted race amalgam. Hybrids 
of widely differentiated races always exhibit the 
stigmata of physical, mental and moral deterioration, 
and the results are already plainly noticeable in Colum- 
bia, where the ''hybrids" and their descendants are an 
ever accumulating quantity of morbidity. 

The conditions of the situation, the copulation of 
white men with negro women, only in rarest instances 



Health and Morals 55 

the reverse, admit of only one result— the gradual dis- 
appearance of the negro as a negro. That is precisely 
what is taking place in Columbia. 

In 1867, General Pope, in charge of reconstruction 
in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, expressed the con- 
viction that the negro's progress was such that, if con- 
tinued, "five years will have transferred intelligence 
and education, so far as the masses are concerned, to 
the colored people of this district." The blind parti- 
sanship of that day may easily account for such a dis- 
torted view. 

But in 1883 Prof. C. A. Gardiner, of Brooklyn, New 
York, predicted that in 30 years the negroes of the South 
would be superior to the whites in numbers, wealth, 
and intelligence, and that within a century the South- 
ern whites would be completely absorbed by the negro. 
It is not known whether the professor meant to be taken 
literally or whether he was perpetrating a sociological 
joke. The signs then and now all go to show that there 
is a gradual but sure infusion of white blood into the 
black race, which means, unless all historic examples 
fail, the sure absorption of the weaker by the stronger, 
of the blacks by the whites, in the next few generations. 
This will give us a solution of the race question no less 
radical than the total disappearance of the negro as a 
negro. It seems to be the only solution which the con- 
ditions of the situation will admit. Incidentally it may 
be obsei-ved just here that Mr. Herbert Spencer would 
have found it somewhat difficult to square his theory of 
a race-preservation instinct with the facts as they exist 
in the South to-day. 



CHAPTER VIII 

CRIME 

Anything like an adequate treatment of negro 
crime in Columbia is almost an impossibility under pres- 
ent conditions. No official statistics bearing upon the 
subject are kept, much less published. The figures here 
brought together were slowly and painfully gathered 
from court dockets and the private memoranda of the 
prosecuting attorney, in consultation with that official, 
the city's police judge, and the justices of the peace. As 
far as they go these figures are reliable. Unfortunately 
they are far from adequate. Consisting of the records 
for a brief sjiace of time, they only show the status of 
this phase of the problem for that time. But in order 
to understand their full significance the figures for the 
same length of time ten years earlier should be placed 
side by side with them. But that is not now possible. 

However, to attempt to measure crime by the num- 
ber of arrests and convictions for a given period is, to 
say the least, a very unsatisfactory proceeding. Crime 
is always a symptom of pathological social conditions 
that lie far beyond the reach of policemen and courts 
and, too often, further still beyond their comprehen- 
sion. Arrests and convictions oftener actually make 
criminals than reform them. And the difficulty is 
greatly increased whenever and wherever the negro is 
concerned. There can be no doubt whatever that the 
alertness, efficiency, and conscientious performance of 
duty by the blue-coated representatives of the law are 
everywhere somewhat increased when the offenders 
happen to have black skins. Their conviction is always 
also much more certain. This is due, in part, to the 

(56) 



Crime 



57 



inability of the prisoners to secure the necessary legal 
assistance, and, in part, to the sang froid with which the 
average white judge and jury convict the negroes 
brought before them. There seems to exist a tacit as- 
sumption that if the prisoner does not happen to be 
guilty of the particular crime charged, he ought to be 
locked up anyhow on general principles ! 

And yet the number of arrests for a given period 
does, in a crude way, measure crime. The following 
tables and figures throw an imperfect light upon this 
phase of our problem in Columbia. 

Convictions in City Police Couet, 1901. 



1901 


O 
•s 

e 
s 

a 

a 

m 

CD 




O 

Tim 

■5 r* 

a c 

■5 ►I 

D a; 
TO 

a 




31 

3 


» 
B 
5' 




> 

3 


53§ 

as 

: 




73 

■5' 



5" 
3 




> 


d 

•0 


t-l 

(S 


^< 

at 
§0 

00 









.5= 

P 



c 


® 
a 



S3 


Whites.. 


111 


45 


35 


17 


5 


3 






5 




33 


233 


4.1 


6.1 


Negroes . 


37 


60 


40 


34 


34 


2 


5 


2 




3 


15 


213 


3.7 


11.6 



In this table the large number of convictions of 
whites for drunkenness is worthy of notice, as far in ex- 
cess proportionately, of the number of negroes convicted 
for this misdemeanor. On the other hand, the negro's 
characteristic traits appear conspicuously in the very 
high proportion of convictions he furnishes for disturb- 
ing the peace, lewdness, gaming, assault. It is note- 
worthy that these are all mild reproductions of conspic- 
uous features of savage characters. While there are 
five cases of vagrancy against the whites the negroes 
seem to be entirely exempt. But this conclusion would 
be a serious mistake. Jail and workhouse facilities 
would be totally inadequate if the police would make ar- 



58 The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

rests among the negro population for this cause. 
Twenty-five per cent of them would be regularly behind 
the bars ! Here again we seem to have the evidence of 
ancestral heritage: want of forethought, inaptitude for 
sustained labor, etc.* 

In 1902 there were 430 convictions in this court, six- 
teen less than in 1901 ; 175 were of whites and 255 of ne- 
groes. We know of no explanation for the very marked 
decrease for the whites with the corresponding increase 
for the negroes over the figures for the previous year. 

In the courts of the two justices of the peace with 
jurisdiction in Columbia township (population, 1900, 
whites, 6,666 ; negroes, 2,476; a total of 9,142), there 
were 146 convictions in 1900, 92 of whites and 64 of ne- 
groes, or 1.6 per cent of the total population for the 
whites and 0.7 per cent of the total population for the 
negroes. For the whites, 1.4 per cent of the white 
population, and for the negroes, 2.6 per cent of the 
negro population. In 1902, there were 187 convictions, 
106 of whites, 81 of negroes, or for the whites, 1.1 per 
cent, and for the negroes, 0.8 per cent, of the total 
population of the township. For the whites, 1.6 per 
cent of the white population, and for the negroes, 3.3 
per cent of the negro population. The negroes fur- 
nished about twice as much crime as the whites, in pro- 
portion to population. 

The following table gives the convictions, by race 
and crime in the Boone County Circuit Court for 1901 : 



♦Havelock, Ellis, The Criminal, p. 209. 



Crime 



59 



Convictions in the Boone County Circuit Court fob 

1901. 



1901 



o 



2 CD 

CD !L 



a 



O p* 

M> 

P2 



Whites. 



Negroes 



35 



35 



12 



During 1901 and 1902 there were 82 convictions in 
this court, of which only 12 were negroes. The large 
number of convictions of whites is explained by the 
special efforts made to overtake the illegal sale of liquor 
in Columbia and elsewhere in the county. Several in- 
dividuals were each convicted on as many as six and 
eight counts. 



CHAPTER IX 

POLITICS 

A discussion of the advisability and justice of the 
sudden enfranchisement of the negro in 1866 is not here 
intended. It is assumed that to-day there is no 
divergency of unbiased opinion as to his then total un- 
fitness for the proper exercise of responsibilities so 
grave to himself and so far-reaching to the nation. 
When the ballot was first put into his hand he was as in- 
capable as a Hottentot of rightly understanding and 
performing the high duties which the chances of war 
had thrust upon him. How he understood and per- 
formed them the history of the ' ' reconstruction period ' ' 
amply illustrates. He quickly became a dangerous en- 
emy to just and stable government. Anarchy every- 
where followed his elevation to power. That the social 
and political institutions of the South survived even the 
brief years of his supremacy is due as much to the utter 
impotence of the negro himself, as to the race-instinct 
which was aroused to its utmost self-assertion in the 
alarmed Caucasian. The momentous issues involved, 
the fact that not only civil but social questions also 
seemed to be at stake, and that everything dear to them 
as men seemed to be in danger of subversion, touched 
the whites of every class and condition to the quick and 
united them into a vast, solid voting machine as over 
against the vast and solid thousands of ignorant and 
sinister votes of the blacks. And the party alignments 
formed more than 35 years ago exist, with only rare ex- 
ceptions, at the present day. And the average negro 
is scarcely one whit more fit to cast a ballot now than 
was the average negro 35 years ago. The writer's vote 

(60) 



Politics 



61 



in school and bond-issne elections, not to speak of great 
national and international party policies, like the tariff 
and the money standard, has been nullified more than 
once by a big "buck nigger" who followed him at the 
polls. 

Though not numerically strong enough in the State 
to jeopardize, directly, the best interests of the common- 
wealth, the negro votes in Missouri would become a most 
formidable factor in any political contest in which the 
white votes might be more evenly divided than at pres- 
ent. In such case the negro vote, one-third of which is 
illiterate, would become the controlling element in the 
elections. An analysis of the political situation will 
make this clear. 

Paett Lines in Missouei, 1900. 





Demo'tic 


Repu'can 


Prog. Peo. 


Proh'tion 


Soc. Dem 


Soc. Labor 


State. ... 


351,922 


314,092 


4,244 


5,965 


6,139 


1,294 


Boone . q.^ 
county ^^^^ 


1,679 


47 


53 


,21 


3 


Columbia 996 


804 


4 


11 


7 





There are in Missouri 809,797 white and 46,887 ne- 
gro males 21 years old and over, 855,684 in all. In 
Boone county there are 6,690 whites and 1,125 negroes 
of voting age. In Columbia there are 1,098 whites and 
445 negroes of this class. The tabulated vote of the 
State given above, reveals how this mass of voters di- 
vides along political lines. It does not, however, class- 
ify the vote ' ' by color. ' ' But it is well known that only 
with the rarest exceptions the negroes here as elsewhere 
in the country still vote with the Republican party. This 
ib illustrated in Boone county where, of 1,125 negro 
voters, certainly not more than 15 or 20 vote the Demo- 



62 The, Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

cratic ticket. In Columbia, with a negro voting popu- 
lation of 445, not more than six are Democrats— and 
that despite the fact that they have nothing to hope for 
from the Republicans in the way of ''spoils." No ne- 
gro has ever held federal office in Boone county. Even 
the janitor of the Columbia post office is, at this writing, 
a white man. Thus far Boone county and Columbia 
have been regarded by the party managers as so safely 
Democratic that no particular attention has been paid 
to the negro vote. It would ordinarily be useless to 
spend money upon it. But in elections other than State 
and National in which ''party lines" are not sharply 
drawn, the negro vote of Columbia has shown itself to 
be excessively venal. Even in school elections it is an 
open secret that scores of "black ballots" have been 
bought by white men with a few gallons of poor whis- 
key! 



CHAPTER X 



THE NEGRO S FUTURE 



Two alien races cannot occupy the same territory 
indefinitely on terms of perfect equality. All sentimen- 
talists to the contrary notwithstanding, race conscious- 
ness, with its resulting affinities and repulsions, exists 
and operates. What, therefore, will be the final destiny 
of the American negi'oes? If there is any solution of 
the problem presented by their number, poverty, igno- 
rance, immorality and general helplessness, other than 
the one indicated in the chapter on their health and 
morals, it must come to the surface speedily or the prob- 
lem will be beyond the reach of helpful or even possible 
interference. 

It can not be said too emphatically that all schemes 
for the solution of the problem by the forcible applica- 
tion of mechanical means by the stronger race are al- 
together impracticable. The plan, for example, to de- 
port to some independent territory beyond the seas some 
eight or nine millions of persons, holding hundreds of 
millions of dollars of property, and for generations 
closely dove-tailed into the economic situation of the na- 
tion, breaks down by its own weight. Even if trans- 
portation facilities and money enough could be obtained 
for such a scheme, * its accomplishment would not only 
leave the South 's agricultural and manufacturing in- 
dustries paralyzed for generations, it would also sound 



*If one ship, carrying 1000 passengers, should leave American 
shores each day of the year, it would take 25 years or longer to 
complete the transportation of these millions — making no allow- 
ances for increase by birth. And at the minimum cost per capitum 
of $50.00, the transportation would mean the expenditure of $500,000,000, 
not including, of course, remuneration for loss of property, of which they 
hold $700,000,000. 

(63) 



64 The Negroes of Columhia, Missouri 

the death knell of whatever hopes for the negro's 
betterment may be entertained to-day by philanthrop- 
ist and sociologist. The South can not suddenly dis- 
pense with the negro's labor, nor can the negro dispense 
with the white man's supervision and control. No- 
where and at no time has the negro race shown 
itself capable of self-government. Africa is still a 
wilderness, except where the white man has planted 
his foot. Hayti and San Domingo are rapidly re- 
verting to barbarism. Liberia is a failure. "Re- 
construction days" in the South throw an interesting 
light upon the subject. Whenever in this country the 
negroes are allowed to follow their strongly gregarious 
instincts there also we find among them the most im- 
perfect socialization. Contact with and supervision by 
the whites is essential to their welfare. 

Of course, the same arguments apply to the seg- 
regation of the negroes anywhere on this continent. 

Nor is their education, as at present conceived and 
practiced, the looked-for panacea. The trouble with the 
negro is not merely that he is ignorant. A few years 
of proper schooling could easily remedy that deficiency. 
The difficulty is more radical and lies embedded in the 
racial character, in the very conditions of existence. 
The negro race lacks those elements of strength that 
enable the Caucasian to hold its own, and win its way, 
and bring things to pass. Negroes cannot create civil- 
izations. They only prosper under tutelage, under rigor- 
ous restriction. Theirs is the child-race, left behind in 
the struggle for existence because of original unfavor- 
able environment and consequent inheritance of physi- 
cal and mental conditions that foredoom to failure their 
competition on equal terms with other races. ''That 
the convolutions in the negro brain are less numerous 
and more massive than in the European appears cer- 
tain. "* The fundamental equality sometimes claimed 



*Waitz, Anthropologic, vol. II, p. 208. 



The. Negro's Future 65 

for him by sentimentalists is contradicted both by phy- 
siology and history. 

As a matter of fact, the vast sums expended by phil- 
anthropists in planting and equipping institutions for 
the higher literary and scientific culture of the race— 
for what is always the flower and fruitage of a long, 
slow evolutionary process— have not been justified by 
any appreciable practical results. The fact that the num- 
ber of graduates from such institutions has increased 
but slightly from year to year certainly does not indicate 
a very large return from the investment. This is espec- 
ially true when we remember that education does not, 
eo ipso, transform a man morally. It may be that 
the pedagogical methods heretofore pursued are alone 
at fault, but amid present conditions negro ' ' graduates ' ' 
find themselves sadly out of place. What the negro 
most needs is industrial training, the inculcation of the 
work-habit, to fit him for at least relative industrial ef- 
ficiency. Labor, foresight, self-control— these are the 
lessons that the negro must learn. And it will take 
more than one generation to drill them into him.* 

In all the discussion about educating the negro, fit- 
ting him thereby for a "higher sphere," the fact is 
usually forgotten that in the keen competition called the 
"struggle for existence'.' the negro must not only meet 
those of his own racial calibre, but others who are man 
for man far more able, the masterful Caucasians, who 
have not only trained minds and hands enough for their 
own needs, but an overplus with which to dominate the 
destinies of less fortunate peoples. In the free move- 
ments of human society men always find the level at 
which their abilities tit them into the economic and so- 
cial fabric. Attempts to order it differently, to change 
a man's level artificially, to fit him unnaturally into 
his surroundings, can produce nothing but confusion. 



*Keane, Ethnology, p. id. Waitz, Apthropologie, vol. I, p. 106. 
5 



66 The Negroes of Cohimhia, Missouri 

That is the negro problem in a nutshell. He is out of 
place in America. Nature never intended that this 
country should be his habitat. And most of the efforts 
heretofore made to improve his conditions here simply 
repeat the initial mistake. Education cannot make a 
$10,000 man out of a ten-cent boy. Neither can edu- 
cation make a Caucasian out of an Ethiopian. Edu- 
cation can not make a gentleman out of a white man who 
has several generations of low-grade blood in his veins. 
Much less can it take a negro, with an inferior cranial 
capacity and a poorer brain development, and with cen- 
turies of superstition and immorality rioting in his 
blood, and elevate him to a position side by side with a 
Caucasian inheritor of a millennium of glorious history. 
It is simple fact that no matter how well you educate 
him, the negro cannot compete with the white man, man 
for man. It is like putting a child of ten against a man 
of forty. In this very fact, however, lies the hope of the 
race. The unfit are thereby being weeded out and the 
fit alone, however few in number, will survive. 
That somt negroes with white blood in their veins rise 
above the level of their race merely clinches the argu- 
ment by depressing the general capacity of the others. 
*'In fact, without miscegenation the negro seems to have 
no future, a truth which but for false sentiment and 
theological prejudice would have long since been uni- 
versally recognized."* This does not mean that there 
ought to be miscegenation, but only that without it the 
negro's case is hopeless. 

In closing, just a few words about the so-called '' so- 
cial question. ' ' In Columbia the segregation of the ne- 
groes is as complete as it can well be as long as they re- 
main a part of the population. They serve their white 
neighbors in various humble capacities. In many 
instances, particularly where the negroes concerned 



*Keane, Ethnology, p. 265. 



The Negro's Future 67 

belong to the ''old regime," the intercourse thus 
necessitated is cordial to a marked degree. Among the 
whites the desire is general to be as helpful as possible 
to a helpless people. On the part of the negroes, how- 
ever, especially the young, the attitude is usually one of 
distrust or latent animosity. AVherever the two groups 
touch, the white man commands, the black man obeys. 
Of inter-racial social life, in the narrow sense of the 
term, there is not the slightest trace. The ' ' color line ' ' 
is distinct. It is also ineradicable. 

As a matter of fact the "social question" does not 
exist at all except in the perfervid imaginations of a 
few alarmists, or as the "shibboleth" of the political 
demagogue. Just as soon as the negro shall become in- 
herently worthy of the rights, privileges and opportuni- 
ties now so jealously reserved for himself by the white 
man he will enter into such rights, privileges and oppor- 
tunities automatically. 

Tn the meanwhile (and this is said in all kindness 
for the negroes) the blacks in this country ought to be 
treated, in theory, not in practice, just as we have dealt 
with the red men. They ought to be treated as "wards 
of the nation, ' ' and as such dealt with by a department 
of the National Government created for that purpose. 

Surely, forty years after emancipation, it is not too 
much to hope that the partisan policies and fatuous mis- 
takes of the Freedman's Bureau would not be repeated. 

For the education of the children there should be a 
separate and distinct school system, carefully adapted 
to their peculiar needs, under the direction and control 
of skilled specialists. Nothing could be more idiotic 
than that provision of the Missouri Constitution, for ex- 
ample, which ordains that schools for negro children 
shall "be the same in conduct, management, control, ad- 
vantages and privileges as for the white schools of cor- 
responding grade. ' ' That is precisely what they should 



68 The Negroes of Columbia, Missouri 

not be. Aside from the debatable question whether the 
negroes are intellectually able to receive and use such 
an education, they do not need an education that 
would tit them for an ideal condition. They do need 
instruction that will open to them the practical opportu- 
nities of life in the South to-day. 

For their police control there should be separate 
and distinct courts, just as we are now coming to have 
courts for offending juveniles, and probation officers 
for wayward children. Aside from their racial psychical 
and physical organization, the prolific cause of juvenile 
crime— the want of a wholesome home life— also lies 
back of much of the crime of which the negroes are 
guilty, and the offenders ought to be dealt with accord- 
ingly. Nothing can be more short-sightedly brutal than 
the ordinary treatment now meted out to negroes guilty 
of crime. Our attitude toward this feature of the prob- 
lem ought not to be so entirely punitive, and more 
reformatory^ 

Politically they ought to be frankly disfranchised. 
They are ''political idiots," and it is sheer madness to 
permit them to misuse and prostitute a privilege which 
the Anglo-Saxons won for themselves only through a 
thousand years of painful history. This would, cer- 
tainly, work an immediate hardship upon a worthy few, 
but in a complex race question such as this, the indi^dd- 
ual can have no rights. And vicarious suffering is ever 
the cost of progress everywhere. It may be very im- 
portant that a few intelligent and worthy negroes should 
have the right to vote. It is more important that the 
mass of negroes should be put into the way of pro- 
gress, and the fact that the negro votes is an insuperable 
bar to his progress in the South. 

Eeligiously they ought to be under the guardian tu- 
torship of the white churches. While we are sending 
well-educated, trained, and expensively equipped white 



The Negro's Future 69 

missionaries to die of fever among the savages of Africa 
we still find it consonant with duty to turn over the semi- 
savages at home to the guidance of ignorant, frequently 
self-conceited and often immoral negro "preachers." 
The comparatively few negro clergymen of education 
and character among them have little if any real influ- 
ence for good. The mass of their constituents is out of 
sympathy with their works and hopes. 

We have taken hold of this entire negro problem at 
the wrong end. It is high time to admit the error and 
begin aright. 



THE NEGROES OF COLUMBIA 
MISSOURI 



A CONCRETE STUDY OF THE RACE 
PROBLEM 



A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE DEPART- 
MENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI, IN PARTIAL FULFILL- 
MENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE 
OF MASTER OP ARTS 



<nKI'ARTMK>"J' OF .•><OCIOI^OGV) 

By 
WILLIAM WILSON ELWANG. M. A 

WITH A PREFACE 
BY 

CHARLES A. ELLWOOD, Ph. D. 

PROPBSSOR OF SOCtOLOOY. 



PUHLilBlIKU BV DBPAKTxUKNT OFSOOIOLOUV 

Untvrksitt of MiSRorRi 
1904 

f'HIClE a) CENTS 



ISJL'04 



